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HomeSportWith 12 toes on her feet, gold-medallist Barman had no money for...

With 12 toes on her feet, gold-medallist Barman had no money for special training shoes

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Barman comes from a humble background and has six toes on each foot, which made it doubly hard for her to find shoes for training while growing up.

New Delhi: Swapna Barman seems to have seen it all at the age of 21 – from being born in a small village in north Bengal with six toes on each foot to bringing home the Asian Games gold medal in the greatest test for a woman athlete, the heptathlon; from having no money to buy proper shoes for training to the promise of special shoes for her wider-than-usual feet.


The daughter of a rickshaw puller and a tea estate worker, Barman has never seen luxury in life. Success did not come easy; often her own body posed the main challenge. Growing up, training without shoes was the only option. It’s only now that her request has been heard by the Chennai-based Integral Coach Factory under the Indian Railways, which has opened up channels with US sports apparel major Nike to get made-to-order shoes for Barman.

What is heptathlon?

Barman’s event is a seven-stage test of speed, stamina and endurance. Each athlete competes in seven events over two days, earns points for her performance in each event, with the highest cumulative points deciding the medals.

Heptathlon was introduced in the Olympics at Los Angeles 1984. The first day sees the women take part in 100m hurdles, high jump, shot put and the 200m sprint. The second day features the long jump, javelin throw and 800m run.

Barman came up trumps in the high jump, which earned her 1,003 points, javelin (872), shot put (707) and long jump (865). She finished fifth in the hurdles (981 points), seventh in the 200m (790) and fourth in the 800m for a grand total of 6,026 points and the gold medal.

Road to glory

Barman was first noted for her potential in 2013 at the 29th National Junior Athletics Championships in Bangalore, when she broke the national record in heptathlon and high jump by jumping 1.71 metres and breaking the previous record of 1.70m set in 2004 by Kavya Muthanna.


Also read: Neeraj Chopra is the crown prince of javelin & Indians should be excited about his future


Barman won second position in the Asian U20 Championships in Taipei in 2014 and came fifth at the Asian Games in Incheon the same year. She finished fifth in pentathlon (a curtailed version of the heptathlon, featuring five events) and seventh in heptathlon at the Asian Indoor Championships in Doha in 2016.

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1 COMMENT

  1. Would emphatically say that there are jewels in our country’s soil. Indeed Barman has proved her mettle. On the one hand there are numerous talents, on the other due to lack of facilities and indifferent attitude of the mentors and officials of the concerned organizations, they are usually overlooked.It is undoubtedly a black spot.

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