Women today have become stronger and wiser. Gone are the days when women were considered inferior and were said to stay at home and do household work. Women have been proving themselves better than man worldwide. Be it politics, sports, entertainment or education, women are ahead of the man with a great pace.
Hima Das has recently made our country India proud with her achievement. The whole country is cheering for her as she created history.

An 18-year-old from Assam, Hima Das, made the country proud on Thursday by becoming the first Indian woman to win the country’s first gold medal at any track event in a World Championship.
The daughter of a farmer from Dhing village in Nagaon district, sprinted her way to victory at the IAAF World Under-20 Athletics Championships as she clinched the top spot in the women’s 400m final race on the third day of competitions.

If this doesn’t move you, nothing will… pic.twitter.com/qBqP9yZaAd

— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) July 13, 2018

Das, a pre-tournament favourite, clocked 51.46s to win the gold. She finished ahead of Andrea Miklos of Romania and Taylor Manson of the United States to win the race. The 18-year-old couldn’t contain her emotions and teared up as she stood at the top of the podium, proudly, singing the national anthem.
Anand Mahindra, the chairman of Mahindra group, took to his Twitter page and shared a video of Das in tears after winning the gold medal, “If this doesn’t move you, nothing will…,” he wrote.

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Speaking to a leading news channel over the telephone from Finland, Hima said, “I am very happy to secure a gold medal for India. I would like to thank my coaches and my parents. They are the powers behind my win.”
When asked what was going through her mind before running for the 400m final, she said, “There was nothing. If I were to think too much I would not have been able to focus on my running. I was telling myself bhaag, Hima, bhaag… aur main sirf bhagi (Hima you have to run and I just ran)”.

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The Moment of Truth: After Winning Gold, Hima Das Became Teary Eyed As She Proudly Sang The National Anthem

Every great story, whether on the silver screen or played out in real life, has a moment of profound, undeniable climax. For the daughter of a rice farmer from a village in Assam, this moment arrived not just in the rush of crossing a finish line, but in the slow, solemn, and intensely personal act of standing still.

The title, ‘After Winning Gold, Hima Das Became Teary Eyed As She Proudly Sang The National Anthem’, captures the essence of a raw, unscripted triumph that instantly became one of the most iconic images in Indian sporting history. This is the story of that moment—a story of grit forged in the muddy fields of rural India, culminating in a historic victory on the world stage that brought an entire nation to tears of collective pride.

Act I: The Making of the Dhing Express

The legend of Hima Das, affectionately known as the ‘Dhing Express’ after her hometown, did not begin on a synthetic track. It began in the humble, waterlogged paddy fields of Kandhulimari village, near Dhing, in the Nagaon district of Assam. Her journey is the quintessential Indian narrative of talent blossoming against all odds.

A Childhood of Mud and Dreams

Born into a family of rice farmers, Hima was the youngest of five children. The family’s financial situation was modest, to say the least, and a career in professional sports was considered an expensive, distant dream.

For Hima, the earliest ambition was not to be a sprinter, but a footballer. She spent her childhood playing the beautiful game with local boys on the village’s muddy tracks, often serving as a striker for her school team and a local club. She even participated in local matches, earning a small sum—around Rs. 400 to Rs. 500 per match—which she saved diligently, proving her determination from a young age.

Her raw, undeniable pace on the field caught the eye of her Physical Education teacher, Shamsul Hoque, and later, her professional mentor, Nipon Das. They were the first to recognize that her explosive speed was better suited for individual track events than the team dynamics of football.

The Leap of Faith: From Village to State Capital

The transition to professional athletics was fraught with challenges:

• Lack of Infrastructure: In Dhing, Hima had no access to modern training facilities. She honed her speed on marshy lands and uneven village tracks, sometimes without proper running shoes.
• Financial Strain: Her parents did not have the resources to support a professional athletic career.
• The Coach’s Conviction: Coach Nipon Das saw an extraordinary, God-given talent and took a life-changing step. He convinced Hima’s parents to allow her to move to the state capital, Guwahati, to train professionally. The coach bore her expenses and promised a better environment, even humorously assuring her parents that she would, at the very least, receive three meals a day while training.

This move, a leap of faith for the entire family, marked the true beginning of her career. In a country where world-class track and field champions are exceedingly rare, Hima Das began a race not just against her competitors, but against a lifetime of economic and infrastructural limitations. She had only been running the 400-meter event competitively for about four months before her date with destiny.

Act II: The Race and The History Book

The stage for the ultimate triumph was the IAAF World U20 Championships in Tampere, Finland, in July 2018. The event was the women’s 400-meter final, and 18-year-old Hima Das stood on the starting block, representing a nation that had never before won a track event at a global championships.

The Final 80 Meters

The race itself was a microcosm of her life’s journey—a difficult start followed by a burst of unstoppable power.

1. The Start: Hima, known to be a slow starter, trailed the field for a significant portion of the race. As the runners rounded the final bend, she was visibly behind the leaders from Romania and the United States.
2. The Surge: In a remarkable display of raw endurance and tactical brilliance, Hima unleashed her signature powerful finish. In the final 80 meters, she accelerated tremendously, flying past three rivals who had a substantial lead.
3. The Finish Line: Hima Das breasted the tape in a time of 51.46 seconds, clinching the gold medal.

In that moment, she didn’t just win a race; she rewrote history, becoming the first Indian athlete to win a gold medal at a world track event at any age group—youth, junior, or senior.

The Search for the Tricolour

What followed the victory was a moment that transcended sport and spoke directly to the heart of national pride. Immediately after crossing the finish line, Hima could be seen on the track, her eyes anxiously scanning the stands. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi later noted, she was passionately searching for the Indian Tricolour. Once she was handed the national flag, she wrapped herself in it, the weight of a billion hopes settled on her shoulders.

This uninhibited search for the flag, a symbol of her people, showed the world that her triumph was not merely a personal best, but a victory for every person back home who had believed in her improbable dream.

Act III: The Teary Triumph and Enduring Legacy

The true climax, the scene that will forever be etched in the national consciousness, came during the medal ceremony.

The National Anthem

As Hima Das stood atop the winner’s podium, the gold medal draped around her neck, the familiar opening notes of Jana Gana Mana, India’s national anthem, began to play. The sheer weight of the moment—the journey from the muddy fields of Dhing to the world podium in Finland, the financial struggles, the long hours of training, and the realization of a billion-person dream—overwhelmed the 18-year-old sprinter.

Hima Das was captured on camera, tears of absolute joy and immense pride streaming down her face as she sang the anthem, completely unconcerned with the world watching.

Explaining her profound emotion later, she stated simply: “I wanted the Indian national anthem to be played and making that happen made me cry with joy.” Her tears were not of weakness, but of the fierce pride of a young woman who had just delivered a monumental, unprecedented gift to her nation. The moment resonated so deeply that public figures, including the Prime Minister, expressed how moved they were by her emotion.

The Golden Streak and Subsequent Honors

Hima’s World U20 Gold was not an endpoint but a powerful catalyst. The rest of 2018 became a golden chapter in her career:

• Asian Games 2018: Just a few months after her World U20 win, she broke the Indian national record in the 400m final, clocking an incredible 50.79 seconds to win a silver medal. She also anchored the Women’s 4x400m and Mixed 4x400m relay teams to two more gold medals.
• Arjuna Award: In September 2018, the Government of India conferred her with the prestigious Arjuna Award, recognizing her outstanding achievement in sports.
• International Recognition: She was appointed as India’s first-ever UNICEF Youth Ambassador in 2018 and signed a major endorsement deal with sports giant Adidas, which promised to provide her with the best training and racing gear—a poignant full-circle moment for the girl who once ran in ill-fitting, cheap shoes.
• The “Golden Month” (2019): She continued her phenomenal form in July 2019, winning five gold medals in various international meets in Poland and the Czech Republic in less than a month, cementing her status as a global sprinting phenomenon.

The story of Hima Das is not just one of athletic prowess, but of the transformative power of dedication. It is the story of a girl who ran barefoot on her family’s rice fields and, years later, stood teary-eyed on the highest podium in the world, listening to the national anthem that her feet had helped to play. It is a powerful reminder that every tear shed in victory is a tribute to the silent, unseen struggles overcome on the journey there.

The Legacy of the Dhing Express

Hima Das’s impact goes far beyond her medal tally. She single-handedly injected a new sense of hope and belief into Indian athletics, an often-overlooked discipline. Her journey has been immortalized, not in a movie, but in the national memory, demonstrating to millions of young people from rural, financially constrained backgrounds that the pinnacle of world sport is within reach.

Her story of the girl who went from running with a football on a muddy patch to becoming a World Champion, culminating in that unforgettable, teary-eyed rendition of the national anthem, remains a powerful testament to the triumph of the human spirit. She proved that even from the most humble origins, with enough fire in one’s heart, a child of India can stand on the world stage and make history.