Two years ago, Gurindervir Singh stamped his return to the top rung of sprinters in India by winning the National Inter-State Athletics Championships in the fading light at Panchkula.
It was only 10.32 seconds, but it brought him the spotlight and support needed to kick his almost stagnant career back into gear. In time, it led to him becoming the fastest Indian on the track, raising expectations of a historic sub-10 run in the most glamorous event in athletics.
Familiar situation
As the 25-year-old prepares for the upcoming Asian Games, the parallels between 2024 and now are hard to miss, even for the man himself.
Back then, Gurindervir was the meet record holder at the Nationals, but, in the three years since he had clocked 10.27s (Patiala, 2021), others had raced far ahead. Coupled with injuries, lack of sufficient nutrition and uncertainty over his sporting future, he had been forced to play catch-up.
Now, with the all-important continental meet looming large, Gurindervir is again battling the stopwatch on the track and questions and injuries off it.
The only Indian to go under 10.1s has had a torrid few months ever since the incredible two days in May when the national record switched hands thrice, Gurindervir eventually making it his own in 10.09s. He injured his hamstring, crashed out in the first round at the Commonwealth Games and finished a lowly seventh at the World Athletics Continental Tour in Bhubaneswar.
The big difference now, however, is the support he has access to. Picked up by the Reliance Foundation after the 2024 outing and working under the watchful eyes of its athletics director James Hillier at the high performance centre in Navi Mumbai, Gurindervir is already back to peak training ahead of his biggest outing of the year.
“He’s had a good couple of weeks of training. He’s getting back into good shape but he’s looking to get into peak 100m shape within the next two weeks. That’s what I’m hoping for,” Hillier said before getting into the details of Gurindervir’s technical strengths and weaknesses.
“CWG … there were certain elements of his race that were quite good from a coaching perspective. I’m very happy with the first 60-70 meters of his race. What we’ve been working on in the last few weeks is getting him to extrapolate that speed over the full 100m.
History-maker: Gurindervir was unstoppable in May, when he made the 100m national record his own.
| Photo Credit:
Ritu Raj Konwar
“We’ve been working pretty hard to get that last bit of the race sorted. I’ve put some specific training in place for that. We have a competition in Delhi on September 10 and that’s going to be a key competition. We’ll get to see exactly where he is, where the training is going and how well he finishes the race there, that’ll give us very good information,” Hillier explained.
The transformation
The man himself has gone from being an emotional and often-stressed youngster to a more confident and mature professional who is determined to take control of his life and his running, something Hillier also acknowledged. The transformation began in March last year, when he broke the national record for the first time with a 10.20s run at the Indian Grand Prix 1.
Gurindervir had been battling stomach ulcers that weakened his body and naysayers who tried to break his spirit. Both were spillovers from his time in obscurity before 2024 — when a poor diet and dirty water stripped away his gut lining. He could barely keep anything in and lost almost 15kgs in a fortnight even as people, known and unknown, sniggered that he was finished.
“If you had asked last year’s Gurindervir about handling the pressure, maybe he would have been in stress. That time too, all this happened with me — interviews, phone calls, questions, expectations. I was not sleeping at night,” he said.
“Back then, I couldn’t get out of it. I was thinking about what to say in the next interview when I should have been thinking about how to improve. When I ran in the Fed Cup [in 2025], I cramped and it stressed me even more because I had claimed I would do a lot in the interviews. That Gurindervir took pressure. This one has evolved, he has learnt from all this.”
A large part of the credit for that, he insisted, went to Hillier for keeping him away from a lot of negativity. “If it wasn’t for him, I would have been in a very bad, stressful situation. The coach motivated me a lot. He gave me the right guidance on how to deal with it.”
A lot of people had been critical of his inclusion for Glasgow, questioning his fitness, but Hillier has already clarified that the problem was not carrying an injury into competition but the lack of sufficient races before the CWG because of the injury. That issue has been addressed although the Continental Tour event highlighted the issues that continue to plague his race plan.
“At the Bhubaneswar event, you’ll see he was in a really good position at 60-70m and then sort of fell away, which I expected to happen based on what’s been happening in training. It’s just how he’s put together,” Hillier said.
“Many 100m athletes run the race in different ways. Guri is a very good accelerator and that’s just his natural strength. He won the national indoor 60m earlier in the year, broke the national record in that with a very fast time of 6.60s. Someone like an Animesh [Kujur] or an Amlan [Borgohain], these guys tend to finish strong, that’s their natural strength. We must train them to their strengths and then work alongside that to manage their weaknesses.”
Listening to his body
Gurindervir has also learnt to listen to his body. “I have worked on everything. What I eat and how much, how much I travel. If I am feeling any pain, how much effort do I have to put into the workout? If I am doing an endurance workout, how do I do it?
Putting it together: Gurindervir is an explosive accelerator, as he has shown in the 60m sprint. He is working with coach James Hillier on extrapolating that over 100m.
| Photo Credit:
Biswaranjan Rout
“In weight training, I have set levels I must achieve every month. It’s the same on track as well. I will train as much as my body needs. I discuss with the dietician how much food I need. I had some lack of mobility before, so sitting with the physio, knowing which muscles and joints I have to work on so that I can run better.”
The one thing that hasn’t changed, however, is Gurindervir’s conviction. The reason he was stressed, he explained, was because what he says matters to him.
“If I say something, it has to have meaning. Words are important for me. If I claim or promise something and I cannot do it, it affects me. That’s my nature. My father had a dream, I started running to fulfil that dream. People said Indians can’t be competitive in 100m, I was determined to do it. It will take some time, but it will definitely happen.”
