New Delhi, Feb 14 (PTI) As a child, young race walker Akshdeep Singh, who on Tuesday booked a surprise World Championships and 2024 Olympics berths, would drink a lot of milk from the buffaloes reared by his farmer farther who encouraged his son to take up sport to get an Indian Army job.

Hailing from Kahneke village in Barnala district of Punjab, Akshdeep became the first Indian from athletics, along with seasoned race walker Priyanka Goswami, to qualify for the Paris Olympics next year as well as for World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary in August after winning gold in 20km event of National Race Waking Championships in Ranchi.

“My father is a small farmer and my mother a home-maker. We have a small piece of land where my father does farming. When I was a child, I also used to join my father in cultivation. I would drink a lot of milk from a couple of buffaloes my father kept at our house. That gave me the strength and stamina,” the 23-year-old Akshdeep told

Source: PTI News