Gurindervir Singh made history on Friday in Bengaluru when he smashed the 100m national record, clocking 10.20s at the Indian Grand Prix-1. Previous record holder Manikanta Hoblidhar himself ran under his old timing (10.23s) with a finish in 10.22s to take silver (and thus qualified for the Asian Athletics Championships along with Gurindervir).
Now, watching Gurindervir in full flow is always an exhilarating experience. Well, flow is probably the wrong term here, because his style is more white-water rapids than gentle drifting. All muscle and explosive strides, he powers through the metres... but, at this IGP, few had expected him to do that faster than any Indian before him. The pure speed on display was stunning; and the timings took everyone by surprise.
Not Gurindervir, though. You see, for him, this has been a long time coming.
His previous best, 10.27s, came in 2021, when he was 21 years old. It's been a pretty wild ride for him since. He lost 2022 to a digestive issue (the mucous lining of his stomach weakened and thinned out, leaving him unable to absorb nutrition properly), and spent most of 2023 recovering. In 2024, he made an explosive comeback winning both the Federation Cup and the Inter-State Championship. But he was still nowhere near running as fast as he was in '21. Then came the call to join India's best at the Reliance Foundation.
This record, though, isn't a result of the training at the Foundation, but more of the facilities available there according to him. He always had the speed; he just needed a firm base to show it. "This is the result of the facilities I've got here," he tells ESPN. "The nutrition, the physiotherapy, the masseurs, the right pattern of training... abhi training ka results aana baaki hain [the results of the training are yet to come]."
That last bit is promising. Having joined Reliance just seven months back, he says it's unrealistic to expect 100% results immediately. In fact, the level of training there took him by surprise. "Adjusting [to the training] was hard early," he says. "I ran at the National Games earlier this year, and I was depressed ahead of the competition. I had a lot of negative thoughts in my head: ''I'm not able to do this [practice], it's not feeling right, I'm not doing well on the track.'"
From going on autopilot because his body simply couldn't adapt to the high intensity demanded, he's now adjusted slowly. It helps that he's training with a premier coach in James Hillier, and two of India's fastest men in Manikanta and Amlan Borgohain (who finished third in the IGP, incidentally, with a run of 10.43s).
"It's a big difference training when you are training with such high-level people. When I was training in Jalandhar, I was the only senior athlete, everyone else was a junior. So, say I am doing a block start training session, I would have to have them placed 2-5 metres ahead so that I get some push in training. Here it's not like that at all."
"I learn things from everyone here. [For example,] Amlan's endurance. My endurance [was never good]... in Jalandhar I never even did high volume training, I used to workout so less there, because if we did too much [in the gym], we would get injured since there was no physio, no masseur..."
In his story until now lies the struggle of the average Indian athlete.
At the Jalandhar hostel he used to stay in, there was no concept of 'good nutrition'. Or even good water. "According to me the water tank there must not have been cleaned for atleast 7-8 years. So, I stopped drinking water from there and used to get water bottles from outside."
An improperly trained [random] masseur injured his hamstrings ahead of the Fed Cup in '22. At the Inter-State a year previously, where he ran that 10.27s, he had been put up in a house that was under renovation since no hotel rooms were available. There was no AC, and after a transformer caught fire no fan either for days; and food was roti-curry from a nearby dhaba.
He first saw signs of his illness ahead of the Inter-State in '22, when he lost 12 kilograms in the space of 8-10 days. He had to go find a solution himself, googling doctors, searching for a correct diagnosis after doctors practicing Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Allopathy all gave him different (and wrong) answers. It took his then coach (Happy Singh) reaching out to a doctor-friend before they identified what was wrong and corrected it.
He was essentially doing the job of a whole team, himself, adjusting with what he had and eking out speed from under-trained, under-nourished muscles. Not anymore.
"Abhi salad kaa raha hoon [I am eating salads now]," he says with a laugh. "Earlier I needed to think about nutrition myself, now I have 5-6 minds doing it. I have a pattern here, a structure: Things like focus on carbs in the morning and afternoon, fibre and protein in the evening."
"I have only used 10% of the Reliance Foundation facilities... I'm just going to start the main [training, now], iron out the faults I didn't even know I had. Like I didn't know anything about running posture, I just thought we must run fast, that's it. I used to do weight training, but now I'm learning how to lift weight: in what period should we lift how much weight, how many reps to do, volume of lifting... now, everything is going in a [structured manner]."
National Record Broken!
Heartiest congratulations to Gurindervir Singh and Manikanta Hoblidhar for their outstanding performances in the Men's 100m at the Indian Grand Prix 1, clocking an impressive 10.20s and 10.22s respectively.
Wishing you the very best for the future. pic.twitter.com/57grZyhYBe
- Dr Mansukh Mandaviya (@mansukhmandviya) March 28, 2025
It's taken immense mental strength for Gurindervir to get to a place where he's now India's fastest man - at one stage, he says, he was broken on the inside when his father told him that if the disease isn't cured, he would have to give up running altogether - but now that he's got a solid platform to build from, he wants so much more. He wants international glory.
It might seem way too out there, a little headstrong, but even as a child, Gurindervir was as stubborn as he was driven.
He was always a 100m runner, even in the U-14s. When coaches tried to dissuade him saying '100m was not for Indians, there's no scope in it, why not try the 400m', he simply ignored them all. "I was determined even back then that one day I'll change their mentality. I will bring a medal, and I will show that I can do it."
"See, until someone does it, no one will believe that it can be done," he says. "Before Neeraj Chopra bhai, people used to say javelin is not for Indians. Now, everyone's doing it... Neeraj Chopra [threw long, and won], and now there are so many quality throwers. So, one guy has to run. If I do 10.10 or 10.0 flat, then I won't be the only one running fast. There will be 10 others cracking the 10.20 mark..."
He wants to be that example -- if not at the level Neeraj is operating on, there and thereabouts. And if there's one thing his story has taught us, you know he'll never give up on that dream.