Deborah is the new word entire India is chanting at the moment. Overcoming the Tsunami effect is not a simple thing to get through. However, she is a girl of few words but she more than makes up with her huge spirit. On the initial day of the 33rd Hero Asian Cycling Championships, she won India's second ever medal in this event with a bronze medal finish in the women's junior 500m time trial at the Indira Gandhi Stadium Velodrome.
The 19-year-old has witnessed a lot in her short life but the bronze is surely one of the peaks of her short career. Aged just 10, an astonishing tsunami wrecked her home in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands which left more than 2,000 people dead and 4,000 children orphaned.
"I was very young when the tsunami struck, just about 10. I ran into the nearby forest with my family and hung on to branches of trees until people rescued us. It took us a long time to get our life back on track. I took up cycling seriously a couple of years after that and have been away from my family most of the time since then," Deborah told Times Of India newspaper after finishing with a timing of 37.841 seconds.
"I have spent most of my time in the cycling camps over the last seven years. Even when the camp disperses I don't leave Delhi and stay in a hostel because it takes a lot of time to get to my home in Nicobar islands," she added.
Deborah ended third behind South Korea's Yeonhee Jang and Taipei's Yu Shiou Cheng, who won gold and silver with timings of 37.159 and 37.834 respectively. India's only other medal in this meet had come in 2005 in Ludhiana, when the women's team pursuit won the gold.
Another hiccup that Deborah had to overcome was loneliness in the camps. "Deborah used to get downcast and lonely because she didn't have anyone to talk to. Sometimes she came to me and told me that she wanted to go back home but I managed to convince her to stay on. In the last couple of years, we have had more cyclists coming from the SAI camp in Andaman which has cheered Deborah up," CFI trainer Ruma Chatterjee said.
Elsewhere, Jashanjit Kaur will jostle for a bronze in the women's 2km individual pursuit final against Yekaterina Yuraitis of Kazakhstan on Friday. Hong Kong's Yao Pang and Yi Ju Lin will aim for gold.
Compatriot Sunita Devi improved her previous best by clocking 4:04.4235 to finish fifth in the women's 3km individual pursuit where Japanese Sakura Tsukagoshi (3:46.326) won gold, while Korean Youri Kim (3:53.546) and China's Li Jiujin (3:57.499) came in second and third.
Malaysian Muhammad Firdua, who secured gold in the 1-km event, setting up a new record at 1:05.758. Korea's Sunjae Jang also broke the 4km Individual record in the qualification of the men's elite by clocking 4:33.384. Sakura Tsukagoshi of Japan clocked 3:46.362s in the qualification for the women's elite 3km Individual event to better China's Fang Li Mei (3:46.788s) previous Asian record.
