CHENNAI: Asian Games 2018 gold medallist heptathlete Swapna Barman is likely to receive customised shoes from global sports brand Nike, Press Trust of India reported on Friday. It was the General Manager of the city-based Integral Coach Factory (ICF), S Mani who instructed the Sports Branch to get in touch with Nike for designing the shoes and sending them to Barman at the earliest in Jakarta according to sources.
Swapna by birth has six toes on both feet and has often found it very painful to wear normal shoes. As the size of her shoes needs to be ascertained, they are now in touch with the Indian High Commission officials in Jakarta and also AFI officials to ascertain the same.
Since the Heptathlon event consists of seven different activities such as 100 metres hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200 meters, long jump, javelin throw and 800 metres, it requires the athlete to use at least five different types of shoes for these 7 events.
Hence, ICF will be arranging a complete set comprising these five types of shoes to be presented to Barman.
Though the West Bengal athlete does not belong to the broad Indian Railways Sports fraternity, as a measure of goodwill and in recognition of her feat in bringing laurels to the country, ICF has decided to present her with the custom-made shoes.
The ICF, which is the largest manufacturer of coaches for the Indian Railways, has also contributed significantly for the development of sports by establishing state-of-the-art infrastructure and many of its players/teams have bagged top positions in the national sports arena.
