How a late call-up made Roshibina wushu’s first three-time Asian medallist - The Indian Express

Earlier this month, Roshibina Devi Naorem sat at her home in Kwasiphai village near Bishnupur, Manipur, talking to her father about missing her own history. She had just lost to Divyanshi Choudhary in the semi-finals of the final trials, and with that loss went her shot at a third consecutive Asian Games medal. Her father remembers the mood in the house. “Roshibina as well the whole family was a bit depressed that she was not selected, but then I told her to not think about not getting selected and to move on,” says Damu Singh Naorem.

Three days before the Indian wushu team left for Japan, Choudhary got injured. Roshibina got the call instead. “She was not able to practice a lot, but wushu has been her life since the last 13 years, and that’s what she lives for,” her father says. “She will cherish this silver medal the most.”

On Thursday, on barely any preparation, the 25-year-old DSP with Manipur Police became the first Indian wushu player to win three consecutive Asian Games medals, taking silver in the women’s 60kg sanda event after a 0-2 loss to China’s Zhang Xiaoyu in the final. “There were disturbances as I did not get much time to prepare,” Roshibina said in Japan. “But then I ignored those distractions as well, and all I was thinking when I sat in the flight to Japan was to win the medal. My aim was to make the comeback after the loss, and this silver medal proves that.”

She was twelve, in the fifth standard, when she first saw a wushu competition in her village and decided she wanted to try it. Her parents, small-time farmers, told her she was too young and needed to focus on her studies. She found her own way around that. “She would take a vest and fill it up with rice husk and practice wushu with other village kids,” her father recalls. A woman in the village eventually told her to apply to the SAI Centre in Imphal. Selection there meant her food and training were finally taken care of. “I would also often visit her, taking home food and vegetables for her,” he says.

She trained under coach Maibam Premkumar Singh, won junior national medals soon after, and took bronze at the 2016 World Juniors in Bulgaria. A year later, chief national coach Kuldeep Handoo moved her into the senior team, and her first Asian Games medal, bronze, followed in 2018, a win over Pakistan’s Mubasjra Akhtar preceding a semi-final loss to China’s Cai Yingying. In Hangzhou, she went further still, beating Kazakhstan’s Aiman Karshyg on points and Vietnam’s Thi The Nguyen 2-0 in the semis before falling 0-2 to China’s Wu Xiaowei in the final.

Handoo has watched her build herself for years around the one thing her body gave her. “As a junior too, she had a stout physique. And she was never afraid of getting punched while she attacked too,” he says. “Since her height was short, we laid emphasis on her utilising her close range kicks and punches. Post the 2018 Asian Games bronze, we worked on her throwing and punches a lot. In 2024, she had suffered a knee injury and it took a long time to recover.”

The Hangzhou silver had arrived months after ethnic violence broke out in Manipur, and Roshibina dedicated that medal to the state’s people at the time. What she didn’t know, while she trained through it, was how much her family had absorbed on her behalf. “Prior to 2023, I had to sell part of our land to support her training. When she won the Asian Games silver, we used some of the prize money and our money to get that portion back,” her father says. “During the unrest in 2023, while Roshibina was in the SAI training centre, we struggled in selling our farm produce with the unrest and all the things happening around. But we did not talk about the issue with her.” Her grandfather died during that same period. She wasn’t told that either. “We wanted her to concentrate fully on her game,” he says.

In Japan, before the final, she had beaten Bangladesh’s Shika Khatun, Macau’s Chu Man Sin, and 2023 world champion Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy of Vietnam, before getting past Indonesia’s Thania Kusumaningtyas in the semis. National coach Amit Pal saw a fighter who had barely had time to become one for this tournament. “Roshibina had very little time to prepare, but the way she performed here is commendable,” he says. “We left on September 15, and the key was to put her in a good positive mindset prior to the matches. The win against the Vietnamese was vital, and she will take a lot of positives from it.”

Handoo believes the door to beating China’s best isn’t closed, just not yet open again. “Yes, she lost against the Chinese, but she has it in her to score a win against Chinese players. She did that in her junior days and needs to be injury free in coming years to repeat,” he says.

She almost wasn’t in Japan at all. Three days and a phone call changed that math entirely.

Nitin Sharma is an Assistant Editor with the sports team of The Indian Express. Based out of Chandigarh, Nitin works with the print sports desk while also breaking news stories for the online sports team. A Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award recipient for the year 2017 for his story ‘Harmans of Moga’, Nitin has also been a three-time recipient of the UNFPA-supported Laadli Media Awards for Gender Sensitivity for the years 2022, 2023 and 2024 respectively. His latest Laadli Award, in November 2025, came for an article on Deepthi Jeevanji, who won India’s first gold medal at the World Athletics Para Championship and was taunted for her unusual features as a child. Nitin mainly covers Olympics sports disciplines with his main interests in shooting, boxing, wrestling, athletics and much more. The last 17 years with The Indian Express has seen him unearthing stories across India from as far as Andaman and Nicobar to the North East. Nitin also covers cricket apart from women’s cricket with a keen interest. Nitin has covered events like the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the 2011 ODI World Cup, 2016 T20 World Cup and the 2017 AIBA World Youth Boxing Championships. An alumnus of School of Communication Studies, Panjab University, from where he completed his Masters in Mass Communications degree, Nitin has been an avid quizzer too. A Guru Nanak Dev University Colour holder, Nitin’s interest in quizzing began in the town of Talwara Township, a small town near the Punjab-Himachal Pradesh border. When not reporting, Nitin's interests lie in discovering new treks in the mountains or spending time near the river Beas at his hometown. ... Read More