City resident proves his mettle

Neha Saini

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, December 1

A year ago, 26-year-old Sukhreet Singh did not know how to swim or survive an endurance run for 17 hours. But that didn’t stop him from participating in one of the toughest endurance competitions in the world.

Sukhreet overcame a lot of physical and mental limitations and his fear to win the ‘Iron Man of Florida’ title in November this year. And he became the first Sikh to win it, which included four-km swimming, 180-km cycling and 42-km running.

The young achiever from city was honoured by the SGPC for his feat on Saturday. Sukhreet shared his journey and the motivation behind becoming “Ironman”.

“I came to know about this challenge in 2013 through the social media. It is a triathlon event where in 17 hours, one has to go through several endurance tests such as running, swimming and cycling. My biggest challenge was to train myself as Amritsar does not have infrastructure for such sports. Also, the pollution level in the city made it tough for me to run a distance of over 40 to 50 km without affecting my lungs. So I trained indoors with my coach from Canada,” he said.

Sukhreet went through a grueling training schedule and the competition. He said his training helped him in physical as well as mental transformation.

“Every one close to me thought that it was a crazy idea from the start. I had to cover all aspects such as nutrition, training and psychological conditioning. Without any proper guidance, it seemed to be impossible.”

Sukhreet, a member of the Amritsar Bicycling Club, also considers his feat special as he said it sent a positive message to the world about the Punjabi youth.

“I know that my generation is in total mess struggling issues such as drugs, unemployment and lack of an inspiration. Punjabis were known be the powerhouse of talent and courage. Somehow, I feel that even a single contribution in representing my community and country to the context will go a long way,” he added.