A good coach can make or break a sports person’s career. Take the two Arunachal cyclists we featured earlier this week. Their dream would have died had Maxwell Trevor dismissed them as not good enough. They had no bikes, no road cycling experience, they came from poor backgrounds and had no means to buy equipment either. But he didn’t. And today, the two teenagers are dreaming big because a coach believed in them.
Manipur cyclist Khoirom Rejiya Devi’s career, however, was nearly destroyed by a coach who thought he knew better. But instead of giving up, she endured and adapted.
Six months ago, Rejiya Devi, Chayanika Gogoi, Meenakshi and Monika scripted history by claiming India’s first-ever senior medal at the Asian Track Cycling Championship. The Indian women’s team clocked 04.44.699 to pick the bronze in the Team Pursuit event at the continental meet held in the national capital.
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Three months after the historic feat, Rejiya claimed a double gold (individual and team pursuit) for Manipur at the 36th National Games, in which the track events were held at the velodrome of the Indira Gandhi Stadium in New Delhi. She also pocketed bronze in the Omnium race to return a handful from the event that returned after a seven-year hiatus.
And at the just-concluded 74th Senior National Track Cycling Championship at the LNIPE Velodrome in Sonapur, Rejiya picked a bronze in elite women’s individual pursuit event to wrap up an eventful 2022.
Few people know that Rejiya was never into long-distance (endurance) cycling. She took it as a challenge after being pushed out by her coaches, who had once claimed she wasn’t made for the sport.
Cycling was not even her ‘first’ love. Rejiya took to cycling in January 2019 after ending a five-year uneventful career in Sepak Takraw and pedalled hard to find success in the new sport.
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She began her career as a sprint cyclist at the 2020 Khelo India Games. Her first major tournament, she claimed, was a great learning experience.
Back in the camp with a renewed approach to her game, she resumed training in full swing and bagged her first medals in cycling at the junior national championship.
All the campers were given a 14-day break after the event. This allowed Rejiya to return to her native Phubala village in Manipur’s Bishnupur district. Her younger brother Jackson is a goalkeeper, and trained at the Reliance Foundation Academy. He played for Manipur at the Nehru Cup, before moving out to Guwahati to earn a few bucks by plying his trade with the different clubs here.
When her break was about to get over, her father Dilip Kumar Singh called up one of the Manipuri coaches posted at the national camp in Delhi to enquire about booking return tickets. To their utter surprise, the coach sounded a bit hesitant. Instead, she asked Dilip to speak to the other junior team coach.
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“When my father spoke to ma’am to enquire about the booking of my return ticket, she asked him to speak to the other male coach. My father dialled the other coach. He bluntly said, ‘Apki Beti ko ghar hi rehne do, padhai karwao ya kuch bhi, yaha aane ki zaroorat nehi hai’ (Let your daughter stay at home and continue her studies or whatever she wants to pursue. She isn’t fit for the sport),” Rejiya described in detail in a candid conversation with EastMojo.
“I was dejected, hurt and couldn’t sleep for many days. I would keep asking myself what went so wrong that I was rejected outright. I couldn’t believe myself, I lost confidence in my abilities, and to say the least, it felt like the whole world came crashing down around me,” she narrated.
Not the one to surrender, Rejiya took it upon herself to regain her confidence and started running. In the process, she lost 10 kilograms and switched to endurance cycling to earn a call-up to the national camp.
In 2021, she bounced back with a bronze in the Individual Pursuit event at the 73rd senior national championships held in Jaipur, earning her a much-deserved call-up to the national camp.
“That bronze felt like a fresh lease of life for me. I was on top of the world, I could hold my head high and return to the camp,” she described.
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When she returned to the camp, the humble Manipuri made a futile attempt to bury the hatchet with her sprint coaches. “I conveyed my regards to them even though they weren’t my coaches anymore. But in return, they weren’t very warm. I got a good scolding from my father when I told him about that incident. He was furious as the female coach was a Manipuri, and she didn’t support me,” she added.
Eventually, the coaches were fired from the national camp for some reason, which Rejiya isn’t aware of. Rejiya wasn’t interested in discussing the painful past anymore.
Soon, the conversation turned towards the obstacles she had to overcome. She talked about a painful incident, when her father Dilip Kumar Singh, a fisherman-turned-water supplier, lost sight of his left eye in a freak accident. He was ‘struck’ by a rice plant while fishing near a paddy field. Her mother, Manileima Devi is a weaver and supports the needs of the three children, including the eldest daughter, to pursue her nursing course.
“I don’t want to pressurise my parents for any monetary needs, so whatever I get in the camp, I try to manage with that. Earlier, many of my neighbours in the village supported me when I tried to make a career in cycling. There was a senior named Meipak who helped me a lot financially. She didn’t even want me to return the money. She has helped a lot, I can’t forget her support,” said Rejiya, who will appear for her Class 12 exams next year. She failed to clear her 10th exams in 2017 but eventually cleared the exams.
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Rejiya now hopes to clear the debts and, more importantly, support her family after getting an offer from the Indian Army to join as a Havildar. “I’m looking forward to joining the Army next month. They are forming the first women’s cycling team. It will be a good challenge to race for them.”
Rejiya now hopes to better her performance at the upcoming Road Nationals in Maharashtra next month before formally joining the Services team.
Thank heavens she did not pay heed to the words of an ignorant coach.
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