Navdeep Singh getting the Rashtriya Bal Puraskar from then Indian president Pranav Mukherjee. (Photos by special arrangement)
Growing up in his village Buana Lakhu in Haryana, a young Navdeep Singh, who suffered from dwarfism, would listen to the taunts of neighbourhood kids calling him “Bauna (Dwarf)” and would avoid getting out of his home for days. It was only after he started competing in wrestling and athletics and got the Rashtriya Bal Puraskar in 2012 that he felt confident to face those taunts.
On Sunday night, as the four feet four inches tall Navdeep won the gold medal in the men’s javelin throw (F41) final with a throw of 47.32 metres in his third attempt, brother Mandeep Sheoran and mother Mukesh Rani were cheering for him. Navdeep had initially finished second, but was upgraded to gold medal after the initial winner from Iran, Sadegh Beit Sayah, was disqualified for unsporting or improper conduct.
“Navdeep would lock himself in a room and would not get out of the house for days. All the neighbourhood kids teased him about his height and would call him Bauna,” elder brother Mandeep Sheoran shared with The Indian Express.
“But then my father Dalveer Singh used to encourage him by getting him books and talking with him. Our father died two months ago but he would have been the proudest to see Navdeep scale new heights at the world’s biggest stage.”
Navdeep was born preterm, a seventh-month baby, in 2000, and it took the parents two years to realise his dwarfism. The father, a panchayat samiti official, and the mother sought treatment in Rohtak and Delhi. It was at the Government School in the village that Singh first started competing in athletics, bagging a series of medals in national-level school competitions. He was conferred the Rashtriya Bal Puraskar in 2012.
“Our father was a wrestler and Navdeep also started at the local level. But a back injury ended his wrestling dreams. He then opted for athletics at the school and would compete in special-ability events as well as able-bodied events. When he got the president award, the whole village had celebrated the feat and honoured him,” shares the brother.
Four years after getting the award, Singh shifted to New Delhi to train with the coach Naval Singh where he brushed shoulders with players like Sandeep Chaudhary. In 2019, he won the gold medal in the world para junior championship in Switzerland.
“When he decided to shift to train at Delhi, he was influenced by seeing Neeraj Chopra making the world junior U-20 world record. He told my father that he can stay independently. I used to get him the javelins from Meerut or import from abroad and our father even took a loan from his LIC policy to support Navdeep,” shared the elder brother.
A 31.62m throw in the World Para Championship in 2019 (he finished 9th) was followed by a personal best of 43.78m in 2020 that helped him qualify for the Tokyo Paralympics games. He finished a close fourth with a throw of 40.80m at Tokyo. He then began training with the national champion and coach of Indian Para team Vipin Kasana.
“When he came to train under me, I had not trained athletes with short height before. But then I also studied about the various throw angles required for an athlete like him. The key was to make him adjust with the 2.2 m long javelin with the use of his shoulders and upper body and taking the explosiveness from the shoulders. He would also put a lot of effort in the run up which sometimes hampered the release. And we worked on getting him to find a suitable speed. We also worked on getting the pull implemented properly from his hands, which are a bit smaller,” says Kasana.
This year, Navdeep, who currently trains under coach Sunil Tanwar, won the bronze medal in world para championships in Kobe with a throw of 42.82m.
Mother and brother know how he will celebrate the Paris medal. “He has always shown all of his medals to the village kids. This time too, he will do the same,” says Mandeep.
