Hard work no empty boast for Tokyo hero Sumit Kumar

India’s hockey team bronze that ended a 41-year Olympic medal drought has been hailed as the fruits of labour, but for midfielder Sumit Kumar it is much more than a sporting idiom.

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The 25-year-old, among players who vindicated coach Graham Reid’s mantra of youth, was labouring away in real life. The son of poor landless labour in Haryana was a cleaner in a dhaba (food kiosk) when he took up playing the game for a free pair of shoes and hockey stick given by a local coach to draw trainees.

Kumar was a vital player in the team’s engine room, guarding the space between midfield and striking circle, tasked with stopping attackers before the move got dangerous. Highly valued for his work rate and a regular in the playing eleven, he is arguably the fittest in the squad, having aced the yo-yo fitness test with the highest score.

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Kumar did odd jobs to help the family make ends meet while elder brother Amit Kumar quit playing the game to back the younger sibling’s dream of playing for the country.

On Thursday, as the nation erupted in celebration when India pipped formidable Germany 5-4 at the Olympics, festivities began at his Kurad village of Haryana’s Sonepat district. People poured on to the streets in joy and congratulated Kumar’s family, marking a happy milestone in a journey with origins in uncertainty.

Ticketless travel

In his early playing days, Kumar would travel ticketless on trains to save for diet money. “Before he was selected for the sports hostel in Gurugram, he worked at dhabas in Murthal (on the Delhi-Chandigarh highway) for five years so that he could arrange for diet and other expenses. Milk was a luxury. He used to travel in trains without ticket to save for meals and fruits,” Kumar’s brother said.

“Gradually, he started spending the whole day on the hockey ground. At one point, we thought he might quit the game due to our family’s poverty, but he continued. After three years in the sports hostel, he was selected for Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) north zone Bahalgarh centre. He won’t come home even on weekends to save the bus fare.”

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Brother’s wedding

Many Indian athletes have skipped important family functions chasing sporting dreams that are also a way out of poverty. His village coach Naresh Kumar said Kumar missed the wedding of his elder brother, Jai Singh, a labourer.

On Thursday, Kumar dedicated his medal to mother Darshna Devi, who died last year. “My mother worked as a domestic help to bring us up. Had she been alive, she would have been the happiest person today. It was her dream that India must win a hockey medal at the Olympics. Though she is not alive, her blessings are always with us,” the player said over phone from Tokyo.

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