In a small village in Assam in northeastern India, where dreaming big is often the only way to soar beyond humble beginnings, a young Zubin Gohain carried a quiet, burning ambition that refused to be grounded by his circumstances.
Watching from the sidelines of local athletics meets, the teenager dreamed of one day standing tall on a podium, a medal glistening around his neck.
High jump was his first love, but the sport had little presence in Harmuti, a rural area in Assam’s Lakhimpur district, where Gohain spent most of his childhood.
With a professional setup not at his disposal, Gohain’s dream seemed almost out of reach. But giving up was not an option for the young boy, whose optimism outweighed the difficulties around him.
In his backyard, two bamboo sticks planted firmly into the ground held up his high jump dreams, while a rope stretched across them and a hand-stitched tarpaulin sheet stuffed with rice-farm hay served as a modest launchpad for his promising future.
“It took my family three days to set things up,” Gohain told Olympics.com. “Near our house, there was leftover hay from rice farming. One day, while I was playing in the backyard, I got the idea [for this makeshift setup].
“We didn’t have a proper high jump pit in our village. I used to practise in the long jump sandpit by placing a bar above. But in that setup, I couldn’t properly practise my technique.”
The hay stuffed inside the makeshift landing mat softened the blow of Gohain’s high jumps, but was no match for the firm cushioning in foam mats used professionally. Did that scare a 13-year-old Gohain away from taking the leap of faith? Not quite.
“My friends and I used to jump around everywhere. We would challenge each other to see who could jump higher. Sometimes I hurt my neck, but back then, I wasn’t really afraid,” he recalled.
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Learning the ‘flop’ from watching Tamberi
A local coach offered the passionate high jumper some basic tips but Gohain still lacked guidance on mastering the ‘Fosbury flop’, the most dominant technique in the sport.
Named after the late Dick Fosbury, the flop involves a backwards jump that enables athletes to use the natural arch of their backs to propel themselves over the bar.
Like many teenagers his age, Gohain knows how to make the most of social media and learned the Fosbury flop by watching YouTube and Instagram clips of Italy‘s Gianmarco Tamberi, the joint Tokyo 2020 gold medallist.
“I really like Tamberi’s technique,” Gohain said.
Tamberi – who shared Olympic gold with Qatar’s Mutaz Barshim in 2021 for the first athletics joint podium in more than a century – is Gohain’s favourite, not just for his athletic abilities but also his quirky personality.
“I love his style: his half-shaved beard, wearing mismatched socks… Sometimes, I also try [to imitate] such things in competitions. It gives me confidence.”
Now 16 and one of India’s most promising athletes, Gohain has made a long journey, from learning high jump with the help of a smartphone to training at the Inspire Institute of Sport (IIS). That’s one of the premier sports centres in India and one which has trained several Olympic medallists, most notably Tokyo 2020 javelin champion Neeraj Chopra.
“Soon after joining IIS in June 2025, I found out that I had also been selected for the India team. Training at IIS has been very good. There’s professional coaching, proper diet, and strength and conditioning.
“Earlier, my upper body would be very stiff. Now, I am working with the coaches on improving that so I can arch better. We also worked on my runway approach and on improving my strength.”
Rising over adversity
Gohain, whose foray into athletics began at the age of 10 with sprinting and long jump, built his fledgling high jump career amid personal and financial hardship.
“In 2024, my parents separated, and because of that, I couldn’t practice properly for almost six months. I wasn’t able to concentrate on studies either,” Gohain said.
“My mother worked in a garment-making factory, and my elder sister had to drop out of high school because things were difficult financially.”
Determined to fund Gohain’s training at a state camp in Guwahati, a city nearly 350 km away from their village, his mother picked up more work stitching clothes from home, while his sister took up a demanding job, even as the family struggled to afford housing and proper meals.
In the midst of those challenges, Gohain went on to excel at competitions. In October 2025, he leapt 2.01m to win gold in the boys’ high jump event at the National Junior Athletics Championships in Bhubaneshwar, Odisha.
Two weeks later, representing India at the Asian Youth Games in Bahrain, Gohain achieved a personal best of 2.03m, bagging the bronze medal, finishing behind the People’s Republic of China’s Bi Zaoxin and Chinese Taipei’s Huang Kai-lun, who was first with 2.05m.
“After winning a medal at the Youth Asian Games, my confidence increased a lot,” Zubin added. “I stopped feeling afraid of other competitors. I felt that they were almost the same age as me and that I had worked just as hard as them, so I could do it too.”
READ MORE: https://www.olympics.com/en/news/dakar-2026-athletics-india-high-jump-zubin-gohain-interview-hay-pit-podium
