Man Kaur
.jpg)
Sardarni Man(n) Kaur (born March 1, 1916) is an Indian track-and-field athlete. She holds the world records in the Over-100 years old categories for a variety of events. At the age of 103, she was given the Nari Shakti Puraskar award by the President of India.
Life
Mann Kaur's height is about five feet and she is a native Punjabi speaker.[1] She has won multiple gold medals at the World Masters Athletics Championships.[2][3][4]
She did not start to pursue athletics until she was 93. In 2016 she became the fastest centenarian at a competition in the American Masters Game.[5]
In anticipation of the 2017 World Masters Games, Kaur trained regularly at Punjabi University, in hopes of improving upon her own world record which she set over the years. Her coach was her own son Gurdev Singh, who was 79 years old at that time.[6] In the 2017 games, held in Auckland she completed the 100 metre sprint in 74 seconds.[1]
In 2019 she competed in Poland winning four events in her category - shot put, 60m sprint, 200m and the javelin. She completed the 60m race in 36 seconds and "felt great" afterwards.[7] After this she and Gurdev were invited to tour universities in Baru Sahib where they inspired students when they spoke about their achievements and the diet they follow. As per those speeches, their diet includes nuts and pulses, home grown soy milk, kefir, wheatgrass juice, and sprouted wheat which they turn into chapatis.[1]
Late 2019, Kaur (age 103) won gold in the 200 meter dash at 3:01.61 and shot put at 2.21 m at the Dec 2019 Asian Masters Championship in Malaysia. [8]
On 8 March (International Women's Day) 2020 she was handed over the Nari Shakti Puraskar award. The award was presented at the Presidential palace in New Delhi by the President of India with the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, in attendance. She is nicknamed as the "Miracle from Chandigarh".[5]
References
- ^ a b c "Whatever Happened To ... The 101-Year-Old Champion Runner From India?". NPR.org. Retrieved 2020-05-12.
- ^ "Man Kaur, 100-year-old runner from India, wins gold medal at Masters Games". The Indian Express. Retrieved 2017-04-30.
- ^ "Man Kaur, oldest athlete at World Masters Games, now Auckland's oldest skywalker". stuff.co.nz. Retrieved 2017-04-30.
- ^ "101-Year-Old Wins Four Gold Medals at the World Masters Games". runnersworld.com. Retrieved 2017-04-30.
- ^ a b "Lady mason, centenarian athlete among 15 women conferred Nari Shakti Awards". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 2020-04-10.
- ^ "101-year-old athlete Mann Kaur sets world record to win World Masters gold". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 2017-04-30.
- ^ Bhattacharjee, Sumit (2019-12-20). "Man Kaur, a woman athlete who is going great guns at 103". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 2021-03-21.
- ^ 2019 Asian Masters Championship Meet Results. [1] Retrieved Mar 24, 2021