Guwahati News Desk: “Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” ― Robert F. Kennedy.
The quote above goes perfectly with this sportswoman, Chetna Sharma who dares to dream despite of all odds faced just for being a woman in the field of sports.
Chetna who was born in Pathsala, Barpeta district started her schooling life at Gilbert English medium School. She graduated from Punjab Technical University and completed her MCA from Assam Engineering College in 2015.
During a small talk with Hello Guwahati, Chetna opened up about her career which began much before she was actually born. Her father was a good athlete and she too started her training from school life itself. Chetna’s biggest inspiration from her childhood was legendary arm wrestler John Brzenk.
In 2011, Chetna was made aware of her strength in her hands by one of her friends. She then started to train herself for the national and international level competitions for arm wrestling.
Reminiscing about her first wrestling tournament Chetna said, “My first tournament’s experience was like never before. I participated in a tournament held at Borbari, Guwahati in the year 2011. Where I was able to win a bronze medal.”
Since then she started her full-fledged training for the coming tournaments aiming high. For the sake of sports she scarified and dedicated a lot. During this time her family was her biggest inspiration always on her support.
She wasn’t perplexed by any other things and was totally devoted on her goals until her hard work outshined it and was titled Miss India Arms Wrestler 2019, at 43rd National Arm Wrestling Championship held in Belai, Chhattisgarh. She is the first woman of Assam to win this coveted title.
While talking about her future plans she said, “Way back in 2017 I was selected for world championship but couldn’t go as I was new to my job. Again in 2018, I could not go due to some financial problems. But in 2020, I was all prepared but this worldwide pandemic halted my plans for the third time. I aim to participate in the Asian as well as World Arm Wrestling Championships.”
Before concluding the talk, Chetna dropped a short message for the aspiring girl athletes, “Being a woman, I would just like to say that we girls should not think we are comparatively weaker than boys. Even if we are biologically weaker than boys it doesn’t. I won’t say only about wrestling it can be in any field. I would also like to add that the parents of every daughter should encourage them to fulfil their dreams and support them in their journey. There should be no barriers between boys and girls”.