DEHRADUN: Rambai, a 106-year-old sprinter who took up athletics two years ago when she was 104 years and set a world record for a 100m sprint in the above-85 category last year, on Monday added more feathers to her cap by bagging three gold medals – one each in a 100m sprint, a 200m sprint & one in shot put – at the 18th National Open Athletics Championships held by Yuvrani Sports Committee in Dehradun.
In each of the three competitions, for the above-85 category, Rambai beat about three to five other participants to clinch the top spots. She proudly walked off the podium, saying “I’m happy” in Haryanvi, telling-off her granddaughter for offering her a leg massage, asking her to “give it to someone who needs it.”
For Rambai, who was born in Kadma, a small village in Charkhi Dadri, and spent the better part of her life doing household chores and working in the family farm field, her tryst with athletics started when in 2016, Punjab’s Man Kaur, at 100, made headlines by becoming the world’s fastest centenarian to win gold at American Masters Game in Vancouver, clocking 1 minute and 21 seconds in 100m sprint. Next year, Kaur had bettered her own world record, shaving seven seconds off her 100m timing at the World Masters Game in Auckland (clocking 1 minute and 14 seconds).
It was Rambai’s 41-year-old granddaughter, Sharmila Sagwan, who told her Man Kaur’s story and said if an over 100-year-old woman could do it, why not her.
With just a little bit of professional practice and, probably fuelled by years of hard work on the field and a diet mostly consisting of milk, homemade dairy items and farm-fresh vegetables, Rambai broke Man Kaur’s record, completing the 100m sprint in just 45.50 seconds, at the Open Masters Athletics Championships in Vadodara in June last year.