Patan girl to represent India in World University Games

Palanpur: From Hajipur village of Patan District to Chengdu, China — where the World University Games will be held in August this year — long-distance runner Nirma Thakor has indeed come a long way. A art graduate of the Hemchandracharya North Gujarat University (HNGU), Nirma, has made it to the Indian team for the international event.
The journey, though, has been anything but smooth.Nirma topped the podium in the 21km trails held in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, few days back to make the cut for the Indian team. She registered her personal best of 1hour, 22 minutes, 6 seconds in the trials to take the first step towards realizing her dream.
“Pahle desh ke liye, fir gharwalo ke liye bahot kuch karna hain (I want to achieve a lot for my country and family),” Nirma said. Nirma is desperate to payback for the hardships her family has faced for her.
Nirma’s father owns a small farmland which doesn’t yield enough for the family to survive. So, he doubles up as a farm-labour to sustain the family and her daughter’s dream of being an athlete.
Nirma says that she could have performed even better in the trials. “There were hills on the race route. It added few extra minutes to her timings. Also, I didn’t look at the watch during the race. I could have easily achieved sub 1.20 hours timing,” Nirma added.
The trials saw athletes from universities across Indian vying for a place in the national team. The World University Games, also known as the Universiade, is a biennial international multi-sport extravaganza organized by the International University Sports Federation.
Chirag Patel, director of Physical Education department of HNGU, the chancellor and the university staff congratulated Nirma on her achievement.