The Indian Vikings nobody watched

Watching their own sport go viral, care of a Norwegian football celebration, cracked Ujjwal Kumar Singh and his teammate Lakshay up. The Viking Row craze had swept Europe well before Erling Haaland’s men scalped Brazil at the World Cup, and India’s own version of it had already gone into the hory books a little more quietly.“We watched the Viking Row videos, and it was great to see them go viral,” Ujjwal said. “Unfortunately, when we row on water, we are almost collapsing the end of the race to scream chants!” He laughed at the thought, no synced chants, no battleship backdrop, just two exhausted men crossing a finish line.
That finish line came at the World Rowing Cup 3 in Lucerne this June, where Ujjwal and Lakshay, a lightweight double sculls pair, rowed to gold in 6:26.09, a time that put two boats behind them no Indian crew had ever beaten before: Hong Kong, the dominant force in Asian rowing, and the Netherlands, India’s first European scalp. It sets up a rivalry to watch when the pair reach the Asian Games, where Hong Kong, China and Japan will all show up looking for the rematch.
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The race itself was a study in patience. India trailed at the first 500 metres, drew level the 1000-metre mark, where their stroke rate peaked, then traded the lead with Hong Kong through the next 500 before finishing with one of the most composed closing bursts of the regatta, winning the final 500 over a second.
“We had never beaten Hong Kong who are Asian champs from 2018, 2022 before. Holland are always strong. And we achieved time targets set for us,” Lakshay says.
Ujjwal, a bronze medall at the last Olympic qualification meet and a four-time national champion, was only recently paired with Lakshay, on the strength of a shared habit: their boat kept hitting its time targets. They have medalled together in every outing since.
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Rowing at this level doesn’t end in a roar. It ends closer to nausea. “Sometimes you get a vomiting feeling. So Nutrition Ma’am advised on carbs, proteins to deal with it. I never liked fast food or mithai, but I happened to tell her I drink tea twice. Now, chai is not allowed,” says Ujjwal, speaking from the Indian Army’s rowing base in Pune.Story continues below this ad
Lightweight sculls come with a hard ceiling, 68 kilograms, for the Stroke, the rower who sets the rhythm for the boat and keeps the oar, or chappu, in position. Lakshay rows Bow and holds the balance. “It’s a challenge to maintain body weight but still generate power,” says Ujjwal, 181 centimetres tall to Lakshay’s 188.
Lakshay is the more technically polished of the two, capable of holding 32 stroke pulls a minute on the ergometer, the hardest setting there is, and doing it routinely. His approach to opponents is simple. Stick to training, reputations be damned.

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Ujjwal had never rowed before he joined the Army, following his brothers into the services. He’s from Atarchedi village in Aonla, Bareilly, a stretch of country that’s quietly become a rowing nursery, the physique, the early diet, the instinctive comfort around water from swimming the Ramganga as kids, all of it produces rowers without anyone planning for it to.Story continues below this ad
“We are small farmers, struggle is obvious. But toughest days have been when family keeps away health updates of my old mother from me when she’s ill,” Ujjwal says.
That’s the cost nobody puts on the results sheet, next to a personal best of 6:23 on the water and 6:29 on the erg, a devotion that runs quieter than any of the numbers.
Lakshay’s route in was gentler, an uncle who enrolled him at the Chhotu Ram rowing academy in Lakhnoura, Ambala, and a technical gift that showed early.
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Neither of them was the rowing story Indian sports fans actually watched this month. That belonged to Norway, whose fans, and even its armed forces, marked a World Cup quarter-final with Viking Rows staged on battleships, F-35s, and whatever else with a gun barrel was lying around. These Indian Vikings had none of the theatre. They just had two men beating opponents no Indian boat ever had, sounding the bugle for the Asian Games on the back of a World Cup gold nobody outside the sport noticed.