New Delhi, India, July 7, 2021: One of India’s leading athletes, Hima Das, has been forced to pull out of the Olympic Games due to injury.
The 21-year-old sprinter informed her 2 million Facebook followers on Tuesday, July 6 that she was out of Tokyo 2020.
“I will miss my first Olympics due to an untimely injury when I was close to achieving the qualification standard in my new event 100m and 200m,” she wrote.
“I would like to thank my coaches, support staff and my teammates for their continuous support. But I will make a strong comeback and looking forward to Commonwealth Games 2022, Asian Games 2022 and World Championship 2022.”
Hima Das, who was appointed Deputy Superintendent of Police in the state of Assam earlier this year, was the first Indian athlete to win a gold medal in the World Athletics/IAAF World U20 Championships – the 400m at Tampere, Finland in 2018.
She is nicknamed the “Dhing Express” and her absence is a big blow for the Indian track team, as she won one gold and two silver medals at the 18th Asian Games in 2018.