When most girls are inclined towards taking up singing or dancing, this 7-year-old took to the tracks. The result is Mohur Mukherjee, now 16 years old, has won silver in her heptathlon event with 4,862 points at the 5th Youth Asian Athletics Championships at Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

The Agarpara girl from North 24-Parganas also topped her performance with medley relay gold. Back home after her international success, Mohur is tad disappointed for not being feted by the local authorities, which is usually the norm.

Mohur said, “I have got no recognition from the government for my feat. If the govt can arrange for better training facilities and good infrastructure, it will help athletes like me.” She wants synthetic tracks for training.

“Right now, I train on mud tracks, which are unusable after rains. We need synthetic tracks,” she said. Narrating her story, she said that she would lose the tournaments where she took part and come back disappointed. But her father’s support pushed her on.

“My coach Rudra Pratim Roy has been with me for the past 6 years and with him I have grown from the district to state, national and now international tournaments.” Mohur’s father Prabir Mukherjee, has been with the girl, thick and thin. He sacrificed his job to accompany her at tournaments.

The Class XII student now has set her targets on the 2024 Olympics. Narrating her progression she said after attaining 18 years of age, she wants to compete at U-20 world championships and after that Asian Games, Commonwealth Games and finally Olympics in 2028. Father Prabir said, “The whole family has been making sacrifices for Mohur.

Her mother and grandmother have also switched to a food regime which suits the youngster and the family has stopped going for social events to avoid distractions.” The father said Mohur’s next pit stop is the conditioning camp in Patiala, where she will train for Asian Junior Athletics Championships (U20), South Korea in June.

“She has already qualified for the South Korea tournament and most likely the camp will be in Patiala, next week.”