Nicknamed ‘Dhing Express’, Hima Das is a 19-year-old Indian sprinter from the state of Assam. She became the first Indian woman — indeed the first ever Indian athlete — to win a gold medal in any format of a global track event at IAAF World U20 Championships when she clocked a speed of 51.46 seconds. Born on January 9, 2000, to rice farmers in Dhing village of Assam’s Nagaon district, Das won five back-to-back gold medals in about a month in Czech Republic in July 2019.
Hima Das was interested in sports since childhood. She regularly played football with local boys in mud pits next to her parents’ rice fields and was convinced to take up professional athletics by a coach.
Das passed her 12th examination from Assam Higher Secondary Education Council in May 2019. Recently, the Bannerghatta Biological Park named a tigress cub as ‘Hima’ to honour Indian athlete Hima Das.
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