For Lalita Babar, 27-year-old girl from a poor family and that too from drought-affected Mohi village in Satara district, it was dream come true to represent India in long distance running at the Rio Olympics. The icing on the cake was that she finished 10th in the 3,000m finals.
Lalita, who stays in a joint family of nine sisters, one brother, her parents and grandparents, said, “I belong to an extremely poor family and sometimes I had to sleep without having food. My family is quite conservative where girls are married of at 18 and are supposed to produce babies. My grandmother opposed my decision to run. But thankfully, she started to support after seeing my success. My family never let me know the problems or criticisms they faced due to my running. That kept my morale high.”
In Rio, Lalita become the first Indian woman athlete to qualify for a track final in 32 years, after P.T. Usha at Los Angeles in 1984. “My running began with efforts to reach my school in the nearby village on time. Thus I began to participate in school competitions,” she said.
The girl from Mohi never had shoes to run and ran barefoot for years. “It cost just Rs 600 to buy good shoes but to get even Rs 10 was a challenge. I used to think ‘why should I waste money on shoes ’ After two years when I got a job in the Railways in 2007, I bought shoes,” she said.
