17-year-old Sabita Toppo, the 100 metre sprint hurdler from Odisha, clocked an impressive 14.17 to bag the silver at the Asian Youth Athletics Championship held in Kuwait, following the gold that she won in 100m hurdles at the National Youth (Under-18) Athletics meet in Bhopal.
Sabita, hails from Sundergarh, Odisha, the youngest of six siblings, joined the Odisha Reliance foundation HPC in 2019, and that has had a transformational impact on her life with an improvement in her timing by more than two seconds in the years since.
“Congratulate Odisha athlete, Sabita Toppo on clinching Silver medal in 100 mtr hurdles with a timing of 14.17s at the 4th Asian Youth Athletics Championships in #Kuwait. May she continue to bring glory for the State & the nation. Wish her all the best for future endeavours”, Naveen Patnaik, Chief Minister of Odisha, congratulated in twitter handle.
“I feel so happy winning this medal. There is a lot of hardwork and I would like to thank the Chief Minister Sir for his kind words, the support from the Odisha government and Odisha Reliance Foundation HPC and I am looking forward to improving my timing at every race and working with my coaches”, Sabita, said.
“Sabita has been a very inspirational story. From personal setbacks to keep performing at the highest levels requires a lot of motivation and she possesses an abundance of that quality. She has made tremendous improvement in her race craft working with her coach Rohit Mane, and I see a lot more potential in her, in the months to come”, James Hillier, Athletics Director of the Reliance Foundation Athletics Programme, said.