Who Is Asha Kiran Barla? Jharkhand Tribal Girl Wins Two Golds At Khelo India

Asha Kiran Barla, a tribal athlete from Jharkhand's Gumla district, added another feather to her cap on Sunday when she won gold in the 800 metre run at the Khelo India Youth Games in Bhopal. Just two days ago, she had won a gold medal in a 1500-meter race at the same event.

Asha Kiran Barla is a 16-year-old resident of Navadih Village under Kandara Block in Gumla district of Jharkhand. She is now among the 2,024 probables selected from the nation for the Paris Olympics. Currently, she is attending the national camp in Bangalore.

"I’m happy to get two more gold medals at the Bhopal Khelo India Youth Games. I’m focusing more on the national camp, which is meant for the next Olympic games," said Barla to the Times of India.

Who Is Asha Kiran Barla?

• Asha Kiran Barla shot into the limelight when she won the Asian Under-20 Athletics Championship in Kuwait in 2022. She bagged one more gold medal at the junior national athletics championships in Guwahati in the same year. So far, she has won 13 gold medals in different national and international championships.
• Barla’s coach and mentor, Ashu Bhatia, said, "Considering her successive success, she is a golden girl for Jharkand on track. She has great potential as a young athlete, and we are pinning high hopes on her for getting into the Olympic team and winning medals for our country." Barla trains under Bhatia at his residential academy in Bakaro.
• When Barla won the Youth Nationals in Bhopal in 2022, the young athlete had to wait two days to speak to her mother over the phone, as their home was situated in the Naxal-affected Gumla district. Their home in the Adivasi village of Nawaidh, about 100 km from Ranchi, has yet to receive an electricity connection.
• She won her first medal at the 2018 East Zone Junior Athletics Championship in Patna. She hasn’t looked back since then.
• Asha Kiran Barla hails from a village where, according to the 2011 census, the female literacy rate was just over 25%. Her mother has been striving hard to provide them with an electricity connection. Earlier, the athlete claimed that her family couldn’t even get a ration card. Her family lives in a one-room house without even a separate kitchen.
• Barla’s elder sister Florence, 21, is also a promising athlete who won gold in the 200 m and 400 m at the All-India University Championships in Bhubaneswar in 2022.
• Athletics is more than a passion or sport for the Barla sisters; it is a way to lift their family out of poverty. Barla’s father, a school teacher, passed away in 2013 after battling cancer.

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