On July 29, 2026, Dilip Mahadu Gavit ran the fastest 100 metres of his career at Scotstoun Stadium in Glasgow. He crossed the line in 10.71 seconds, a new Commonwealth Games record, and became the first Indian male athlete to win a Commonwealth Games gold medal in para athletics. The result was the latest point in a career built less on early promise than on persistence, a coach who backed him early, and a string of results that grew bigger each year.
Growing up in Toran Dongari
Gavit was born on 21 April 2003 in Toran Dongari, a village near Nashik in Maharashtra, into a farming family of five. At the age of five, he fell from a tree and injured his right arm. Timely medical treatment was not available in the village, and the injury developed into gangrene. Doctors had to amputate his arm from below the elbow. He continued to help his family with farm work as a child, and running became something he did on the roads of the village, without any formal coaching.
School years in Surgana
Gavit studied at Shahid Bhagat Singh School in Surgana tehsil, Nashik district. His coach, Vaijanath Kale, first noticed him at an interschool athletics meet and saw potential in his running. Kale took on the responsibility of training him and covering his expenses, since the family could not afford it on their own. Gavit later moved to Nashik to train under Kale more regularly. Around 2019, while still preparing for his Class 10 board examinations, he got his first chance to compete at the national level.Khelo India Youth Games, 2019That year, Gavit was picked for the Maharashtra team at the Khelo India Youth Games (KIYG) in Pune, his first appearance at a major sports complex. The team won bronze in the men’s 4x400m relay. It was a modest result on paper, but it marked his entry into competitive athletics beyond the school and district level, and it brought him to the notice of the wider para sports set-up in the state.Gold at the Asian Para Games, 2022Gavit’s main event has always been the 400m in the T47 category, for athletes with an impairment in one arm who retain full use of both legs. At the 2022 Asian Para Games in Hangzhou, China, he won gold in the men’s 400m T47, a result that also turned out to be India’s 100th medal at the Asian Para Games. The win placed him among the country’s leading para sprinters and opened the door to international competition.World Championships and a Paralympic debutIn July 2023, Gavit represented India at the World Para Athletics Championships in Paris, where he earned a quota place for the 2024 Summer Paralympics. At the Paralympics, held in the same city a year later, he ran a season’s best time in the heats to qualify third for the men’s 400m T47 final, his first Paralympic final. He could not repeat that form in the final and finished last, in eighth place, with a time of 49.99 seconds. It was a hard result to take, but it gave him experience at the highest level of the sport at the age of 21.Commonwealth gold in Glasgow, 2026Three years on, at the 2026 Commonwealth Games (CWG) in Glasgow, Gavit made his Games debut not in his primary event, the 400m, but in the 100m T47. He said afterwards that the 400m is usually his main event, and that he enjoyed racing the shorter distance instead. He made the most of it. Running from Lane 7, he closed hard over the final 30 metres to win gold in 10.71 seconds, a new Games record.His compatriot Mohammed Basil Morssinganakath finished second in 10.83 seconds, giving India a one-two finish in the event, widely described as the first such result for the country in Commonwealth Games para athletics. England’s Kevin Santos took bronze in 10.85 seconds. The result made Gavit the second Indian para athlete to win gold at these Games, following Sharmila Dhankar’s win in the women’s shot put F57 days earlier.Gavit dedicated the medal to Kale, who has coached him since his school days. The win came on Guru Purnima, a day set aside to honour teachers, and he called it a gift for his coach.
Support and what comes next
Gavit is currently supported by Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ), a sports organisation that funds and trains India’s Olympic and Paralympic prospects. With an Asian Para Games gold, a Paralympic final behind him and now a Commonwealth Games record, his focus is likely to return to his primary event, the 400m T47, as he looks ahead to the 2028 Paralympics in Los Angeles.
