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This story is from June 29, 2019

Special Olympics gold medallist Rajkumar Tiwari cleaning dishes in restaurant

Rajkumar has missed two important ranking point tournaments this year – Cup of Tyrol in Austria and Bosphorus Cup in Turkey – due to lack of funds. He is likely to miss the next five championships to be held in China, Canada, Croatia, Germany and the USA as well.
Special Olympics gold medallist Rajkumar Tiwari cleaning dishes in restaurant
DIRE CIRCUMSTANCES: Rajkumar working as a cleaner at a restaurant in US (TOI Photo)
NEW DELHI: He sold newspapers in the morning and by noon, he walked the narrow bylanes of Delhi's Sadar Bazar convincing potential customers to buy his imitation jewellery. Then there was a month when he worked as a cleaner at an Indian restaurant in the USA – 10-12 hours daily – to fund his certification course in figure skating in San Jose, California.
That's the life of Rajkumar Tiwari, India's lone gold medal-winning ice skater and a silver medallist in pairs at the Special Olympics World Winter Games 2013 in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
The Special Olympics World Games are an international sporting competition for athletes with intellectual disabilities (a neurodevelopmental disorder with general learning disability), organised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Since 2014, Rajkumar, son of a newspaper vendor from Paharganj's Multani Dhanda, has been competing in the normal category in international competitions after undergoing treatment, which included therapy sessions.
Rajkumar has already missed two important ranking point tournaments this year – Cup of Tyrol in Austria and Bosphorus Cup in Turkey – due to lack of funds. He is likely to miss the next five championships to be held in China, Canada, Croatia, Germany and the USA as the cost of participation in these tournaments is anywhere between Rs 16-18 lakhs.
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These events are important for Rajkumar to qualify for next year's World Championships in Montreal, Canada – a qualification gateway to the World Winter Games in Beijing 2022.
Sports minister Kiren Rijiju has promised help to the 28-year-old after his struggles were brought to his knowledge.
"I will definitely meet him and solve his financial problem. Whatever help is needed, the ministry will provide him," Rijiju told TOI.
Rajkumar, who commutes daily from Delhi to Gurugram for practice, says he's even finding it difficult to pay for his routine training at an ice skating rink in a mall, the only ice skating rink in the NCR.

"There are days when I have to skip training because I don't earn enough to pay Rs 500 fee per day (on weekends Rs 700) for practising at the rink. The upcoming championships are important to accumulate points and qualify for the World Championships. I need government's help urgently," Rajkumar said.
"I am more worried about my younger brother Manjesh. He is a brilliant figure skater in the junior category and has an invitation to participate in all these five championships. Recently, he won an international medal – a bronze at the Oceania Novice competition in Melbourne last month. Both of us don't have funds to travel to these tournaments. Crowd funding is helping us out to a certain extent, but raising rest of the money is a huge problem," added Rajkumar, who won silver in the 2014 ice skating nationals.
Apart from crowd funding, Rajkumar and Manjesh are largely dependent on family's savings, which have almost run dry.
"During our visit to California for the US Figure Skating Association's (USFSA) three-month certificate course, I took up the cleaning job and washed utensils to earn those dollars to pay for the course. The cost of the course was around Rs 12 lakh and I had no choice. The course was important for us to graduate to the next level in the figure skating," Rajkumar informed.
Rajkumar is eligible to receive funding from the National Sports Development Funds (NSDF), which is earmarked for promising athletes.
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