Priti Lamba overcomes injury setback to triumph at Federation Cup Athletics

Priti Lamba clearly remembers the day she took up sports in school despite not being even remotely interested. The physical education teacher made an announcement in class that students who would join the athletics team would be allowed to practise in the last period of school every day. The offer to officially bunk classes was too tempting to turn down for the then 12-year-old from Haryana.
Within months, Priti won her first medal at a block-level competition at Ballabhgarh where she was adjudged the best athlete of the competition for her wins in the 800m and 1500m. “I was given a pair of tracksuits and a dinner set as a prize. I was so happy back then,” she recalls. And the end of that year, she had bagged her first medal at the junior nationals.
“Tab shuru hui meri gaadi (That’s when my athletics career kicked off).” What started off as an excuse to bunk classes soon turned into her passion. Her zeal was so infectious that it spread to her family, especially father Jagbir.
“My father used to wake up at four in the morning so he could take me to the ground. Then he would wait there until I finished and rush back home to reach earlier than me to crush almonds to make a drink for me. My ser was also very supportive. She made a diet chart for me and prepared my meals,” remembers Priti.
Father Jagbir works at a petrol pump in Ballabgarh, Haryana. (Express Photo)
Fast forward to the 2023 Federation Cup in Ranchi. On Monday, Priti clocked 9:47.78s in the 3000m steeplechase to reger the fourth-best all-time India timing and qualify for the upcoming Asian Championships to be held in Thailand. She finished almost 11 seconds better than the qualifying norm set the Athletics Federation of India.
While Priti was scorching the tracks in Ranchi, Jagbir took help from his colleagues at the petrol pump he works at to stream his daughter’s race. Jagbir, who earns a meagre salary of Rs 10,000, was working overtime, filling up vehicles, at the pump in Ballabhgarh.
“He keeps calling me to ask for the links. He is my biggest fan and supporter. Without him, I couldn’t have achieved anything,” she said.
When Priti first told her father that she would like to pursue athletics, his father spoke to a sports coach in the village. But the coach was reluctant to train her individually. “The coach told me he would train me if I could convince more girls to join. I used the same bait that worked for me. I told them that they will get to bunk classes and I found recruits in no time,” Priti said.
Bad luck strikes
After competing in the middle dance events for the first couple of years, she switched to steeplechase. 2017, she became a national camp regular and a medal prospect for the 2018 Asian Games. But just when she was in peak form, Priti suffered a setback.
While training at the national camp in Patiala, she slipped at a water jump and broke her ankle in two places. The injury squashed her hopes of taking part in the Asian Games.
“At first, I didn’t feel the pain and kept running. Then within minutes, my ankle swelled up and the pain was unbearable. I was rushed to a hospital and I asked them If I could go to Allahabad in two days for join the railways. The doctor asked me if I was out of my mind and asked how I would travel with a broken ankle. That is when I first got to know that my ankle was fractured,” said Priti who still runs with a support rod in her ankle.

It took her almost a year for Priti to resume training and the long break, added to the “ghar ka khana” (home food), increased her weight from 45 to 60 kg. It was during this testing phase that her then long-term boyfriend and personal coach Vicky Tomar kept her afloat. Although she trains under Delhi-based coach Rakesh Yadav, Vicky, a former national-level steeplechaser himself, travels with her to competition venues and off-season training camps.
Both of them have a slightly different version of how they met but Priti’s is a bit more detailed and interesting. “We met in 2013 during a training session at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi. Our coach asked him if he could set the pace for me during practice. He must have thought it was a good opportunity to talk to me. Since then, he’s been setting the pace for me (laughs),” she says.
After their wedding in 2020, Vicky quit athletics to focus on his wife’s training. He receives workout and training clips from coach Rakesh while training out of Delhi and then guides Priti. “After her ankle broke, a lot of people wrote her off but I wanted to take up the challenge and prove them wrong. We knew only one of us could continue sports and I just wanted to back her ambition, so I quit,” Vicky said.
Priti, who will soon head to Ooty for altitude training with her husband, responds: “I would have quit sports if not for him. I need him to be there when I train. If I don’t see his face on the ground, all my workouts go wrong and I feel weird.”
With a new personal best in Ranchi, she is confident of clocking the Asian Games guideline mark and perhaps even realise her father’s biggest dream. “He keeps telling me that it’s his desire to see me win an Asian Games medal before he leaves us,” she said.