Jinson Johnson

Gold medallist in 1500 m and 800 m Silver winner in Asian Games Jinson Johnson is another hotshot athlete that gained highlights this year because of his brilliant performance in 2018 at International level. After featuring in 800 meters event at the Rio Olympics. In 2018 Commonwealth Games he finished fifth setting a new national record in the 1500 meters race by breaking the 23-year-old record of Bahadur Prasad. And later went on to win the Gold medal in the men's 1,500 m at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta with a timing of 3:44.72 in the final event, as well as a Silver medal in 800 meters. He also broke the long-standing national record of Sriram Singh in 800 meters in June 2018 when he clocked a time of 1:45.65 secs in Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships.

Swapna Barman

Born with six toes on each foot. Barman faced a lot of challenges in life ranging from inability to find proper running shoes to get a necessary diet for an athlete. But despite all these hurdles, she didn’t let the spark go in vain and become the first ever Indian athlete to win the Gold medal in Heptathlon at the 2018 Asian Games. However, it didn’t come easily to her as the 2017 Asian Athletics championships winner suffered a jaw injury but the 22-year old athlete from Bengal broke many of her personal records and already gained enough points in the initial six events that despite finishing fourth in the 800 m she was able to finish at the top.

Manjit Singh

Born in Ujhana village of Jind district in Haryana, Manjit’s introduction to athletics wasn’t too difficult as his father was himself was a field athlete, in the Discus throw and shot put watching whom he got enrolled. Part-time farmer, Manjeet, who once worked with ONGC on two year contract and had to wait for five months to see his newborn child because of training schedule rose to fame in this year’s Asian Games after he surprises everyone in the 800meters final by beating medal favorite and countrymen Jinson Johnson to become first Indian in 36 years to win yellow metal in this category finish with the personal best timing of 1:46:15 minutes.

Arpinder Singh

Triple jumper Arpinder, who had won a Bronze medal in 2014 Glasgow CWG added laurels to his name this year. On the eve of National Sports Day in India, the 25-year old won the Gold in triple jump event in 18th Asian games. He covered the distance of 16.77 m and bagged the No 1 spot becoming the second Indian to achieve this after Mohinder Singh Gill who was the winner at the 1970 Bangkok Asian Games.