Naveen Dagar was the bronze medalist in the 2014 Asian Games in Steeplechase. The 33-year-old Army runner sustained an injury during March and since then has been off the track for the last six months. Naveen has become overweight as well during this duration.
Naveen will face the challenge of losing weight when he returns back to training. The Army runner will have to shred his weight to make a comeback.
“Since I wasn’t running between March and September due to rehabilitation to recover from an injury, I have put on weight,I was 78kg. It was roughly more than 12 kilograms of my normal body weight”
Naveen Dagar told Sportskeeda.
At present Naveen is working on shredding his weight and working on his fitness for the 2022 season.
“I don’t want to rush back to hard training as I am still undergoing rehab to recover from lower left leg surgery sustained in March.”
Fatal injury of Naveen Dagar
Naveen Dagar injured his left leg at the 2021 Federation Cup Senior Athletics Championships which was held in March this year. He was trailing national record holder Avinash Sable in the steeplechase race. But he fell in the water jump after two and a half laps of the 400 meters lap. After covering roughly 1000 meters he called it a day, due to the injury.
Naveen was immediately rushed to the hospital where multiple fractures were diagnosed. He underwent surgery and for almost six weeks and walked with crutches. The doctor said to Naveen it is not possible at all to compete in the near future.
“It is difficult to explain when a doctor tells you it will not be possible to compete again, leave alone a high intensity workout,”
Determined to make a comeback
After the surgery, staying safe was the main priority of Naveen because Covid-19 had a steep rise.
“The medical experts do not understand what goes inside the mind of a runner if he or she is not running. For me it’s like fish out of water,”
According to Naveen Dagar, the second most important thing to him was getting good rehabilitation.
” I wasn’t able to get the right kind of rehabilitation due to the pandemic, It was a different kind of struggle. To start with, I began cycling in my village near Jhajjar in Haryana. I am at Army’s Sports Institute in Pune. I am able to run easily. There is no pain in my leg. I am now able to run easily without pain,”
It’s been more than seven months after Naveen’s injury. However, at present things are panning out well. We hope for a good comeback for Naveen Dagar.
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