Gurindervir Singh: India’s Fastest Man .

Before Gurindervir Singh became India’s fastest man, there was a village ground in Punjab, a father who wanted his son to become an athlete, and a young boy who simply liked running.

His father, Kamaljit Singh, was a former volleyball player and Punjab Police constable. After a wrist injury ended his own sporting ambitions, he began taking young Gurindervir to a ground near their home in Patial village, close to Jalandhar. He eventually introduced him to coach Sarwan Singh in nearby Dalla.

The early training was simple. Mountain climbers, push-ups, pull-ups and running formed the foundation. But the belief around Gurindervir was already there. His father wanted his youngest son to do what he had not been able to do himself.

A Sprinter Before the Spotlight.

Gurindervir was not someone who suddenly appeared at the top of Indian athletics. He had been running competitively for years, developing as a 100m specialist and building the fundamentals that would later become one of his biggest strengths. He won an Asian U20 Championships bronze medal and eventually became a national champion. He also established himself as one of India's leading sprinters at the senior level.

His move into a stronger high-performance environment changed another part of his development. At the Reliance Foundation, he began training under British coach James Hillier alongside other leading Indian sprinters. Training with athletes such as Amlan Borgohain and Manikanta Hoblidhar gave him something he had previously lacked: daily competition.

Training around faster athletes pushed him differently. One athlete might be stronger in the gym, another might have better endurance. Instead of training alone and relying only on his own understanding, he now had people around him constantly giving him something to chase.

Then Everything Changed.

In March 2024, Gurindervir ran 10.20 seconds at the Indian Grand Prix and broke the national record. It was the moment when the wider athletics world started paying attention. But becoming the fastest Indian came with something he had not expected: pressure.

The sudden attention affected Gurindervir. He struggled to reproduce the 10.20 performance over the following year, and the confidence that had helped him reach the record began to disappear. The athlete who had spent years trying to prove he could run fast now had to deal with the expectation of doing it again.

That period became an important part of his development. He had to learn that a breakthrough race was not the finish line. It was the beginning of another level of expectation.

In 2024, he still produced important performances, including a 10.32-second run at the National Inter-State Championships and a gold medal. He was also part of the Indian 4x100m relay team that set a national record of 38.69 seconds in 2025.

The record had returned. The consistency was still being built.

The Year Everything Came Together.

Then came 2026.

Gurindervir began the season by setting the Indian indoor 60m record at 6.60 seconds. A few months later, the 100m record started moving again.

At the Federation Cup in Ranchi, Gurindervir first ran 10.17 seconds in the semifinal. Animesh Kujur then ran 10.15, taking the record back almost immediately.

The final became another story entirely. Gurindervir ran 10.09 seconds.

He became the first Indian man to break the 10.10-second barrier and once again became the country's fastest 100m runner.

Behind those 10.09 seconds were years of work, but also something else: the ability to come back after a period when things had not gone as planned. His father had started taking him to the ground as a child. Coaches had developed him. Training partners had pushed him. And Gurindervir had eventually learned how to deal with the pressure that came with becoming a record holder.

The Hard Part About Being the Fastest.

Being the fastest man in a country can make every race feel different. After his 10.09, expectations rose quickly. At the 2026 Commonwealth Games, however, Gurindervir ran 10.39 seconds in the heats and did not advance to the semifinals.

It was a reminder of how unpredictable sprinting can be. The difference between a national-record performance and an early exit can sometimes come down to a single race on a single day.

But that result does not erase what came before it. If anything, it adds another chapter to the career.

The story of an athlete is rarely a straight line from talent to success. There are breakthroughs, plateaus, injuries, pressure, bad races and moments when confidence has to be rebuilt. Gurindervir has already experienced several of them.

And He Isn’t Done.

Now the target is moving again.

As he looks towards the Asian Games, Gurindervir has spoken about wanting to finish on the podium. He has also discussed the possibility of breaking the 10-second barrier, but his focus is on becoming the kind of sprinter who can perform when the biggest races arrive.

That is perhaps the most interesting part of his story. India already knows that Gurindervir can run 10.09.

The next question is what he can do with everything he has learned since.

The boy from Punjab who started on a village ground is now racing against the clock, against the best in Asia and against his own previous limits.

For Gurindervir Singh, 10.09 was history.

It was never supposed to be the ending.