23-year-old Asmita Dey scripted history on Friday when she became the first judoka to win a Commonwealth Games gold medal. But the one person she would’ve loved to call wasn’t there.
Dey defeated Canada’s Heidi Quach in the women’s 48kg final. However, her thoughts must have been with her father, who suddenly passed away in December of last year. It left her devastated because, for her, he was her biggest supporter.
“When my father passed away, I thought everything had finished because he was the one who supported me,” Asmita said, struggling to hold back tears after her historic triumph.
“I am from a very small village in Tripura. People there don’t dream this big. But Papa always supported me,” she said.
Asmita comes from Belonia, a small town in Tripura. Her father, a cycle mechanic who earned around ₹300 a day, supported her dreams and never questioned her decision to pursue the sport.
The family lived in a modest mud house, where every rupee mattered. When a serious knee injury threatened Asmita’s career, her father did something most parents with even the best of means would hesitate to do.
He brought her to Delhi for treatment and purchased medicines to make sure his daughter would return to the sport.
For Asmita, training made no sense after her father had passed away; however, her mother’s quiet act pushed her forward. Ten days after the funeral, she asked her daughter to return to the Sports Authority of India National Centre of Excellence (SAI NCOE) in Bhopal.
“If I stop you today, your father will think I am shattering your dreams,” she told her daughter.
On Friday, years of belief culminated in a high that Indian Judo had never experienced before. It was a victory that first belonged to Asmita and her father. The father who invested every rupee and every ounce of belief in his daughter’s future.
While he wasn’t in the stands to cheer or waiting by the phone, his presence remained in every step that took Asmita to the top of that podium.
