Vandana Katariya
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A brief biography
As in 2021 July
MS Nawaz & Ishita Mishra, August 1, 2021: The Times of India
When Vandana Katariya was a child, she was told her love for sports was unbecoming of a girl. So, she would sneak away, forage for tree branches and practise her moves, away from the prying eyes of disapproving elders in Uttarakhand’s Roshnabad village, report MS Nawaz & Ishita Mishra.
But Vandana found one defender when everyone else wanted her to drop her passion — her father. When Nahar Singh Kataria, who had been a wrestler, died three months ago, Vandana couldn’t make it home due to training. She became India’s first woman to score a hat-trick at the Olympics.
‘Grandma would ask Vandana to learn to cook, not play hockey’
Vandana Katariya became India’s first woman to score a hat-trick at the Olympics and part of the country’s first women’s hockey team to make it to the quarterfinals.
“We are nine siblings. Grandmother would ask her to pay attention to household chores and learn how to cook, not waste time playing,” her elder brother Shekhar, 36, told TOI. Those in her village didn’t like the idea of a girl joining boys in sports either. “But father supported her. He was the only one to do so.”
At the foothills of the Shivalik hills, Roshnabad was practically off the map when Vandana was growing up. In 2000, Roshnabad got its own stadium.
It was kho-kho that got Vandana into her first organised sports event. “Around 2001, local hockey coach Krishna Kumar recruited many girls to form a women’s hockey team. Vandana was one of them,”Haridwar district sports officer SK Dobhal told TOI.
Kumar’s son Ravi said, “We’d train together every evening. One day my father told her that if she wanted to make a name, she had to focus on hockey.”
Vandana was playing at a school tournament in Roshnabad when Meerutbased coach Pradeep Chinyoti spotted her. “I encouraged her to move to Meerut and train. In the three years she spent here (2003 to 2006), I saw she had great speed,” he told TOI. “Her hard work got her into the national juniors’ team. She worked her way up and made it to the national women’s team. Since then, she has played more than 200 international matches. When news of her feat broke on Saturday, her village burst into celebrations. Crackers went off, songs were sung and the village that once wanted her to stop playing was proud of her. “Father always said she would make Roshnabad famous,” Shekhar said.
