Who is Pooja Singh? All you need to know about 17-year-old athlete who broke National Games meet record

Pooja Singh, all of 17, was at her very best at the National Games 2025 in Dehradun. The teenager shattered the meet record in high jump and won the gold medal on Wednesday, February 12. At the Ganga Athletics Ground, Maharana Pratap Sports College in Uttarakhand, Pooja overtook Swapna Barman’s 1.83m by 0.01, recording a height of 1.84 meters.

Hailing from Haryana’s Bosti village, Pooja comes from a humble background, with her father Hansraj working as a construction worker. It was her coach Balwan Singh who helped Pooja take strides in her career after being impressed with the youngster’s yoga postures.

In 2018, Pooja began making an impact in her career after winning the gold medal in the Asian U18 Championships. She won the silver medal in the 20th edition of the Asian U20 Athletics Championship which took place in Yecheon.

In the Youth Asian Championship in Tashkent, she clinched the gold medal. Then in July, Pooja participated in the Asian Athletics Championships, at Supachalasai National Stadium in Bangkok.

Pooja took giant strides in her career after bagging the bronze medal in the Youth Commonwealth Games in Trinidad & Tobago.

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Pooja Singh qualifies for the Asian Athletics Championships

At the National Games, Pooja left behind Tamil Nadu’s Gobika K, Karnataka’s Abhinaya S Shetty, and Haryana’s Rekha. While Gobika won the silver medal with a jump of 1.79 meters, Abhinaya and Rekha jointly bagged bronze with a jump of 1.77 meters.

Uttar Pradesh’s Khyati Mathur, Kerala’s Athira Samaraj, Haryana’s Prachi, UP’s Manshi, and Gujarat’s Payal Jamod finished fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth, respectively.

With her incredible performance in the National Games, Pooja also breached the qualification criterion of 1.83 meters and secured her berth in the Asian Athletics Championships, scheduled to be held later this year.

Pooja will now be looking to break the national record of 1.92 meters, which is currently held by Sahana Kumari since 2012.