Odisha cycling sensation Swasti Singh won gold medal in the Elite women 60km mass start event in the 25th Senior National Road Cycling Championship, held in Navi Mumbai on 7 March, 2020. She completed the race in 2 hours 25.462 seconds with a speed of 29.89 kms per hour. Coming on the eve of International Women Day, the achievement assumed added significance both for Swasti and Odisha.

Twenty-year-old Swasti, who hails from Rourkela, unfortunately missed another medal in the National championship as her bike got punctured in her second event on March 8. A trainee of SAI National Cycling Academy (SAINCA), New Delhi, Swasti has been riding a wave of success since 2018.

In 2018 she won her first national medal in the 15 km individual time trial event at the 23rd National Road Cycling Championships in Kurukshetra, Haryana. She fell down from the cycle once during the race but still went on and finished third to bag the bronze medal.

A protégé of coach Sushil Kumar Das, Swasti won her first international gold medal at the age of 17 in the 5th Asian Cup Track Cycling Championship at Talkotora Velodrome in New Delhi in 2018. She won the yellow metal in women junior 2 km individual pursuit with a time of 2:41.123 and an average speed of 89.37kmph.

In 2019, she created a new national record of 2:35:161 seconds by beating her own previous record of 2:37:00 seconds to win a bronze medal at the Track Asia Cup Cycling Championships in New Delhi. She followed this with a silver medal in the 13th South Asian Games, 2019. In 2020, Swasti won two gold and one silver medal at the 3rd Khelo India Youth Games in Guwahati.
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PHOTO: Odisha woman cyclist Swasti Singh after winning gold medal in the the 25th Senior National Road Cycling Championship, held in Navi Mumbai on 7 March, 2020.