Girl from remote Uttarkashi village is player of tournament in her 1st first int’l rugby c’ship in Tashkent

DEHRADUN: A 20-year-old athlete from a remote Uttarkashi village, who discovered rugby by chance after walking into what she thought was a race trial three years ago, became India’s standout player at the Central and South Asia (CASA) Rugby 7s Championship in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, by winning the women’s player of the tournament award in her first senior international outing.Mahak Chauhan, from Bhadrasu village in Mori block, scored nine tries for India in the tournament held from May 16 to 17. India’s women’s team finished fourth, while the men’s team won silver at the inaugural CASA Rugby 7s, which was officially sanctioned by Asia Rugby and World Rugby and brought together six women’s teams — Uzbekistan, Sri Lanka, India, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.Ayush Saini, treasurer of Uttarakhand Rugby Association and coach of the Uttarakhand state women’s rugby team, which first gave Mahak a platform, told TOI on Tuesday that she was India’s highest scorer in the tournament. “She secured nine try scores during the tournament. She impressed everyone with her pace, fitness and attack. Though the Indian team failed to get a podium finish, her individual performance made the country proud,” Saini said. A try is the primary method of scoring in rugby, in which a player grounds the ball in the opponent’s goal area.Mahak’s performance gave Indian women’s rugby a strong individual story at the start of the international season. Rugby India announced the senior men’s and women’s squads after a national coaching camp at SAI Netaji Subhas Eastern Centre in Kolkata from May 1 to 14, stating that CASA 7s would give players valuable exposure against teams from Central and South Asia.Before the six-nation tournament, Mahak was part of the India U-20 team that won bronze in an international rugby championship in Malaysia. But rugby was never the sport she had planned for. She had moved to Dehradun from Uttarkashi after class 8 to continue her schooling and train better in track-and-field events.Her father Arvendra Chauhan, a govt school teacher in Uttarkashi, said Mahak had been good at sports since childhood. “She used to participate in track-and-field events and told us to get her admitted to a school in Dehradun after class 8 so that she could train better. Neither she nor we knew about rugby. One day in 2023, she went for a trial with one of her friends in Roorkee. She was under the impression that it was a race. She performed well without knowing that the state rugby association was organising the trials,” he said.The organisers, including the state coach of the women’s rugby team, noticed her speed and asked her to take up the sport. “Till then, she was oblivious to the physical game. She called us and said she had been selected for the state rugby team, in which players hold an oval-shaped ball and run on the field. We also found the game odd as it was totally new for us. But she started doing well and was soon appointed captain of the Uttarakhand U-18 girls’ rugby team,” her father said.CASA Rugby Alliance was launched to build competitive pathways for Central and South Asian rugby nations, with Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Uzbekistan part of the regional push to grow the sport. For India, Mahak’s nine-try tournament offered a reminder that athletes from remote regions can quickly emerge on the national stage when identified early and given international exposure.