Swapna Barman

Barman was born in Jalpaiguri in 1996. She is unusual in having six toes on each foot. Her mother Basana worked on a tea estate and her father, Panchanan Barman, was a rickshaw driver. However he had to stop this when he had a stroke making life tricky for his four children. She found it difficult to find the right food and her unusual feet caused her pain because she could not afford extra wide running shoes. Swapna uses her prize money to look after her family who live in a house without a concrete wall. In 2016 she won a scholarship of 150,000 rupees in recognition of the success she had at athletics.

Barman collapsed during the final event of the 2017 Asian Athletics Championships – Women's heptathlon which was the 800 metres. However Barman had broken many of her personal recordsand she had already gained enough points from the previous six events and she had finished fourth in the 800 metres.