Race walker-turned-coach Basant Rana upbeat about the future of the sport in the country Premium

Olympian turned coach Basant Bahadur Rana guides Indian race walkers to success, optimistic about future of the sport.

After seeing two of his trainees finish one-two in the men’s 20km race walk in the Indian Open under-23 athletics meet at the Patliputra Sports Complex in Patna, Olympian race walker-turned-coach Basant Bahadur Rana was delighted.

Even though his departmental side Services was not eligible to compete in the under-23 meet meant for the states, Rana made it a point to be at the venue and guide his trainees Sachin Bohra of Uttarakhand and K. Pilot Singh of Manipur to gold and silver respectively.

Rana is passionate about the trade he once plied and continues to contribute to it as a coach. He is delighted to note that since the 2012 London Olympics, where four Indian walkers (including him) competed after over a three-decade gap, the country has made good progress in walking.

“After 1980 (when Ranjit Singh competed in Moscow), we were the first batch (of race walkers to participate in the Olympics). Altogether 12 athletes from India took part in the London Olympics. Out of them, we were four walkers – three were in the 20km (Baljinder Singh, Gurmeet Singh and K.T. Irfan), I was the only one in the 50km,” said Rana.

“Since we were competing after that gap of 32 years, there was a lot of excitement. We showed that we could make a difference in walking. There was a positive impact. Since then, multiple walkers have been participating in every Olympics.

“In 2005, Belarusian coach Nikolai Snesarev came in. After him, other foreign coaches trained us. After that we not only qualified, but also we won medals in the Youth Olympics, Junior World Championships, World University Games, two bronze medals in the World Team Championships (in 2012 men’s 20km and in 2022 women’s 20km). We have medals in the Asian Games as well.

“After 2012, we have participated in every Olympics. In 2012, only men participated. From 2016, women also started participating. You can see in the last (Tokyo) Olympics, we had a girl (Priyanka Goswami) who came 17th. She did very well. She was a silver medallist in the 2022 Commonwealth Games and 2023 Asian championships.