Jyotirmoyee Sikdar won both the 800 metres and the 1500 metres at the 1998 Asian Games in Bangkok. She was the first track and field athlete to receive the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, India’s highest sporting honour, for 1998-99, and she later served a term in the Lok Sabha.
Name: Jyotirmoyee Sikdar
Born: 11 December 1969, Debagram, Nadia, West Bengal
Sport: Athletics
Events: 800m, 1500m
Debagram
Sikdar was born on 11 December 1969 in Debagram in Nadia district, the daughter of Gurudas and Nihar Sikdar. She studied at local schools in Debagram and took up running there. Her strength was the two-lap and metric-mile events, where she combined good speed over 400m with the stamina for longer races. Her 400m best was 52.49 seconds.
Asian champion
Her first big international win came at the 1995 Asian Championships in Jakarta, where she won the 800m. The Arjuna Award followed that year. She ran at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and at the World Championships during the 1990s.
In 1998 she took bronze in both the 800m and 1500m at the Asian Championships in Fukuoka, Japan.
Bangkok 1998
At the Asian Games in Bangkok that December, Sikdar won the 800m in 2:01.00, her best time, and then the 1500m. Winning both events at the same Games put her among the most successful Indian women in the history of the Asian Games. The government gave her the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna for 1998-99, the first year an athlete received it, and the Padma Shri in 2003.
Politics
In 2004 she won the Krishnanagar seat in the Lok Sabha as a candidate of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and served until 2009. She contested the same seat again in 2014 without success. She later backed the Trinamool Congress and in 2020 joined the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Career record and honours
- Asian Games gold medal, 800m and 1500m: Bangkok 1998
- Asian Championships gold medal, 800m: Jakarta 1995
- Asian Championships bronze medal, 800m and 1500m: Fukuoka 1998
- Olympic appearance: Atlanta 1996
- Arjuna Award (1995)
- Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna (1998-99)
- Padma Shri (2003)
- Member of the Lok Sabha for Krishnanagar, 2004 to 2009
