Inspiring tale of triumph
21-Year-old Vijay Raj ‘white t-shirt’
Losing his parents at a young age didn’t dent the enthusiasm or resolve of 21-year-old Vijay Raj, who made India proud recently at the Crossfit Games.
Vijay was the only one representing India at the Games and made the country proud by winning the “Spirit of the Game Award” in South Korea at the Asia Regionals.
Vijay is from a small village 10 km above Uttarkashi, and lost his parents when he was eight. In the absence of anyone else to take care of him, he moved to an orphanage — Sri Ram Ashram Haridwar.
Rashmi Kole, a senior person at the ashram who has seen Vijay grow up, recalls, “He was a very active child, always good in sports and always enthusiastic about all activities. He was always interested in becoming a cricketer. We don’t know when his goal of becoming a professional cricketer started but he spent much of his teenage years practicing cricket,” and adds that when the Crossfit programme began in the ashram Vijay was in Class 12.
“He continued playing cricket in college, joining Sri Guru Govind Singh College in Chandigarh the next year. Although he never received formal cricket training or played competitively, he was the only fresher selected for the college team. In spite of this success he realised that cricket at the higher level was different ball game altogether,” she says.
Vijay says that he was disheartened by the political and money game involved in cricket. “I didn’t want to become a part of the rat race. I also missed the hard work ethic of Crossfit. Since I did not have extraordinary talent in cricket, and neither did I want my career to be hampered because of the politics involved, I thought of working hard in the Crossfit training. First, I took up gymnastics and later moved to Olympic weightlifting,” he says.
Vijay’s dream was to do something that would make him stand apart. His hard work first led to a successful competitive college career where he became the Chandigarh State Open Champion in the 62 kg category. “Later, I started working on the annual Crossfit Games which happens in three levels and won the title at the second level of the Games,” says Vijay, who has now been offered the role of a Crossfit trainer in India.
“In June 2011, Vijay travelled to Singapore and completed the Crossfit Level 1 Trainers course. He is the first and only person from India to qualify for the Asia Regionals in South Korea for the 2012 Reebok Crossfit Games. We hope he will have a career in India as a Crossfit trainer, a discipline that is growing worldwide and is in its infancy in India,” says Rashmi.
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