10.09s. Gurindervir Singh. Fastest Indian of all time.
About a year ago when Animesh Kujur had broken Gurindervir's then record with a run of 10.18s, these pages had put that timing out there and written: "Read that timing. Savour it. For the first time ever, an Indian has run the 100m in the '10.1s'."
Now read this, again: 10.09s.
On a balmy Saturday evening at the Birsa Munda athletics stadium in Ranchi, Gurindervir became the first Indian to ever run in the '10.0s'
He did it in a Federation Cup final that had had quite the buildup. On Friday, Gurindervir broke Animesh's 10.18s and ran 10.17s in semifinal one. Ten minutes later, Animesh retook it with a 10.15s finish in semifinal two. It had been the most extraordinary day in Indian sprinting - but the two weren't done yet and everyone knew it.
Animesh rocked up for the final on Saturday in a do-rag and with the attitude of a man who had just retaken his own national record a day ago. Gurindervir paced in, face a mask of intensity, unsmiling.
Now, it's not just in their demeanor that India's fastest runners ever are different, it's in their build and their strengths too. Gurindervir is squat and compact; muscles compressed into a form that explodes off the line. He's built like how we'd always thought sprinters should look like, and he starts with a ferocity that can take you aback. Animesh is taller, leaner, more of an outlier for a sprinter - built like the greatest outlier of them all, Usain Bolt -- and has a similar fluidity to him that masks the explosiveness of his speed. His start is more languid (relatively, of course), but he builds up speed deceptively as he lengthens his stride down the straight.
On Saturday, Animesh built enough speed to finish in 10.20s (good enough to have been a NR in March 2025, remember) but Gurindervir had maintained his speed through till the end and finished 0.11s ahead. He was uncatchable.
"The semifinal plan was to go full tilt for 80m and then relax. That was the game plan," said Gurindervir after the race. "I had to go 100% in the final," ... and now India knows just what that 100% means. As he crossed the finish line, he ripped his bib number off his jersey, threw it on the track and let out an almighty roar.
As much as that roar, the bib also carried a message, an insight into Gurindervir's mind. After stomping over to pick it up at the finish line, he raised it for the cameras: "Task is not finished yet," it read. "Wait, I am still standing." And there was a number there that had been double underlined: "10.10s" He had come into the race wanting to hit that mythical (for Indians) mark of 10.10s and he had then proceeded to smash through that barrier. Typical.
Three years after he had to take a year off racing due to a digestive issue, a health problem that almost broke his mental resolve to keep at it in the face of no empathy and no support from the system (till Reliance Foundation came calling), Gurindervir has gone and done what many thought no possible. A year and a half ago when he had set a then national record of 10.20s, he'd told this writer after experiencing for the first time a proper plan and proper facilities that looked at all aspects of his profession (nutrition, physiotherapy, masseurs, right pattern of training and even training partners as fast as him) that "abhi training ka results aana baaki hain [the results of the training are yet to come]." Oh, how the results have come now.
He had always believed in his speed ("I have been thinking from the time I was eight years old that I can go this fast", he said on Saturday), with direction he is now showing it again, and again. Reliance Foundation and his training partners there (Animesh, former 100m record holder Manikanta Hoblidhar, former 200m record holder Amlan Borgohain) have pushed him to where he is now. "We push each other," said Gurindervir of Animesh. "If he runs fast, I want to run faster. Athletes have to push each other, friends have to push each other. I think I am a good learner, so I pick up a lot of things from Animesh."
Now, the two great friends, the two great rivals will - should - be going to the Commonwealth Games, having both run below the 10.16s standard set by the Athletics Federation of India. Last season, he had missed out on the Asian Athletics Championships (where Animesh won a bronze in the 200m) after cramping up in the final of the 2025 Fed Cup (which had been held on the same day as the heats and the semis) and AFI had not picked him, an official even pooh-poohing suggestions that he should still have been picked basis the fact that he was the then NR holder by saying that even Carl Lewis was once not picked for the USA team.
Well, he's won Fed Cup gold now, and they have both shown they deserve to shine on the biggest stages. And if there are any worries about him adapting to different tracks across, banish it. After the race on Saturday he said, "Main toh yeh bhi nahi bolta ki track slow hai, jab banda fast hota hai toh saare tracks fast hain [I never say a track is slow, when a guy is fast, all tracks are fast."]
Banda toh fast hain, paaji. Fastest ever, in fact.
"Soon, the world will see Indians running below 10s," he said on Saturday, and given what we've seen him and Animesh do over the past year or so, it would be rather unwise to doubt him.