Indian sprinting is changing. For decades, the 100 metres in India felt like an event trapped in time good athletes, occasional flashes, but rarely a sustained surge that made the continent take notice.
Then came a season when the numbers suddenly began to fall.
10.23 seconds.
10.20 seconds.
10.18 seconds.
Within a year, the national record fell twice. Five Indian sprinters ran under 10.30 seconds in a single season for the first time in history. At the heart of that revolution stood a soft-spoken sprinter from Punjab Gurindervir Singh. His 10.20 seconds in 2025 briefly made him India’s fastest man, before Animesh Kujur lowered the national record to 10.18 later in the season.
But Gurindervir’s story is about far more than a stopwatch.
It is about resilience, quiet battles, injuries, doubt and the belief that Indian sprinting can finally run with Asia’s best.
A Childhood Built on Movement
Gurindervir Singh grew up in Jalandhar district of Punjab, in a family where sport was never a stranger. His father, Kamaljeet Singh, had been a national-level volleyball player. Strength, discipline and competition were simply part of the environment he grew up in.
Yet the elder Singh had one clear belief if his son was going to pursue sport seriously, it should be an individual discipline.
“I played volleyball and football in school,” Gurindervir recalls. “But my father always encouraged me to focus on individual sports. In team games sometimes selection depends on other factors. In athletics, your performance decides everything.”
Those early years were simple. Running races in school competitions, experimenting with different sports, discovering that he had a natural gift for speed. But there was another moment that quietly planted the seed of ambition.
Watching Usain Bolt break world records on television.
Like thousands of young athletes around the world, Gurindervir was mesmerised by Bolt’s effortless stride. For a boy from rural Punjab, the 100 metres suddenly became more than just a race.
It became a dream.
To an outsider, the 100 metres may appear brutally simple run as fast as possible for ten seconds. But Gurindervir describes it differently.
“For us, the 100 metres is completely technical,” he explains. “Everything matters. Your block start, the angle of your ankle when it hits the ground, your posture, your knee lift, how quickly your foot leaves the ground.”
Every phase of the race must be perfected. The explosive start. The acceleration phase. The transition to top speed.
The final meters where speed endurance decides the race. Even a tiny improvement in ground contact time can change a race.
“My start from the blocks has always been strong,” he says. “That is one of my advantages.”
But sprinting at the elite level demands constant refinement.
“You always look for areas where you can improve. If something is a weakness, you work on it until it becomes a strength.”
The Breakthrough Season
The year 2025 marked the biggest turning point in Gurindervir’s career. Indian sprinting suddenly exploded with new performances. Athletes like Animesh Kujur, Manikanta Hoblidhar, and Gurindervir himself began pushing the boundaries of what Indian sprinters had historically achieved.
Gurindervir’s 10.20-second run at the Indian Grand Prix was a defining moment. For a brief period, it stood as the Indian national record. Soon after, Animesh Kujur clocked 10.18 seconds to take the record again. But the significance went far beyond the record books.
For the first time in Indian history:
•Animesh Kujur – 10.18s
•Manikanta Hoblidhar – 10.19s
•Gurindervir Singh – 10.20s
Three Indian sprinters had run close to the 10.10 barrier something unimaginable only a few years earlier. The ripple effect was immediate.
Suddenly, the Asian Games podium, where India had rarely appeared in the men’s 100m, no longer looked like an impossible dream.
Historically, India had won just three medals in the Asian Games 100 metres: Lavy Pinto – Gold (1951), Marian Gabriel – Bronze (1953) & Ramaswamy Gnanasekaran – Silver (1978)
Nearly five decades without a medal. But now, the numbers suggest that drought may not last forever.
When the Body Says Stop
Sport, however, rarely moves in a straight line. Just when Gurindervir’s career seemed to be accelerating, setbacks arrived.
First came injuries. Then came health complications.
He suffered a Grade-1 hip flexor injury shortly before the Inter-State Championships, forcing him out of competition. Around the same time, he also had to undergo sinus surgery. The momentum of his breakthrough season suddenly stalled.
But the physical challenges were only part of the battle. “I was under a lot of stress,” he admits quietly. “I felt mentally drained. My body wasn’t responding the way I wanted.”
In elite sport, injuries rarely affect only the body. They test the mind. To cope with that phase, Gurindervir began psychological sessions to regain clarity and confidence.
“After those sessions, I started feeling much better. I understood myself better as an athlete.”
Today, he says he feels stronger both physically and mentally.
The Race That Still Haunts Him
One of the toughest moments of his career came during a major competition where everything seemed to go wrong. Dehydration, extreme heat, and multiple races in a single day left his body pushed beyond its limits.
“I had three races in a day,” he remembers. “The heat was intense. My water intake was very low.”
By the time he reached the final, his muscles had begun cramping. “My calves cramped. Even my elbow cramped during the race. I was so dehydrated.”
For a sprinter, whose race lasts barely ten seconds, the margin for error is microscopic. But that race taught him a valuable lesson. Preparation off the track matters just as much as performance on it.
If there is one event where Gurindervir believes India can truly surprise, it is the 4×100 metres relay. In 2025, the quartet of Gurindervir Singh, Animesh Kujur, Manikanta Hoblidhar, and Amlan Borgohain set a new Indian national record of 38.69 seconds. It was a historic performance that placed India among Asia’s fastest relay teams.
But relay races are unforgiving. At one major competition, India’s hopes ended in heartbreak when the team was disqualified due to a baton exchange error.
Moments like that are brutal for sprinters. Four athletes train for months, sometimes years, for a race that lasts less than 40 seconds.
And one mistake can erase everything. Yet Gurindervir remains optimistic.
“The relay has huge potential,” he says. “If we improve our baton exchanges and consistency, we can challenge the best in Asia.”
The Next Target
Gurindervir’s ambitions remain clear. He wants to run faster. Much faster.
“My target last year was to run around 10.10 seconds,” he reveals.
For context, the Asian Games gold medal in the last edition was won by China’s Xie Zhenye in 9.97 seconds. The gap remains significant. But Indian sprinting is closing it.
Slowly, Steadily, And perhaps, inevitably.
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Gurindervir also acknowledged the crucial role played by the Reliance Foundation in supporting his journey as an elite athlete.
Through the foundation’s high-performance programme, he has received access to better training environments, scientific support, and structured guidance that have helped him refine his performance. Gurindervir noted that such institutional backing has made a significant difference in helping athletes focus on their preparation without worrying about external challenges.
With access to improved facilities, recovery systems, and expert mentorship, he believes the support from Reliance Foundation has allowed him to train with greater confidence and pursue faster timings on the track
Today, fully recovered from injury and surgery, Gurindervir Singh is preparing for his comeback season. He knows the competition within India itself has become fiercer than ever.
Animesh Kujur, Manikanta Hoblidhar, Tamilarasu, Pranav Gurav. A new generation of sprinters is pushing each other to faster times. But Gurindervir welcomes that challenge. Because in sprinting, competition is what creates progress.
And somewhere in the next few seasons, Indian athletics hopes that one of these men perhaps Gurindervir himself will finally break a barrier that once seemed impossible.
The 10-second barrier. Until then, Gurindervir Singh continues to run. Not just against the clock.
But against doubt, setbacks, and the long history of Indian sprinting that he is determined to rewrite.
