this story originally appeared in on jan 4 2017bengaluru walking 14 kilometers daily for 10 years following the death of his father to working as a tourist guide to earn a living as well as stints at various hotels to provide for his mother and sister this is the story of uttarakhand police inspector manish rawat who secured 13th position in the race walk event in rio olympics and it is truly an inspirational story during his childhood days a young rawat had walk 14 kms to school starting from class ii after several years of walking he found out about the event named race walk and decided this was something he could do well in after plenty of hard work rawat won the national championships in the 20km and 50km categories along the way there were hurdles he came from a poor family and his father who worked in the army passed away in 2002 to feed his mother and sister rawat dropped out of school during 12th standard and joined his mother on the farm later he worked as a a tourist guide then a hotel as a cleaner where he learnt how to cook we dont want any sympathy from anybody but sportsmen should get sponsors to take india to the greater heights in the field of sports said rawat while in bengaluru for training conducted by the sports authority of india ahead of the world championships to be held at london as well as for asian championship of walking in japan it was the 2016 rio olympics that changed his life having qualified for the summer games with a 20km timing of 1 hour 22 minutes and 50 seconds rawat went to rio de janeiro and finished 13th upon return to india he found himself promoted to the rank of inspector from constable on the basis of his performance in sports on september 7 uttarakhand chief minister harish rawat decorated rawat with three stars on his uniform at a ceremony held in dehradunrawat had joined the uttarakhand police as constable via the sports quota in 2011 and became the first policeman in the state to get an outofturn promotion from the rank of constable to inspectorread in kannada