Indian heptathlete born with six toes hoping to find the right shoes

By Nolan Philips

When you are born with six toes on each foot like Indian heptathlete Swapna Barman, you cannot help being fussy about your footwear.

Fifth on her Asian Games debut as teenager in Incheon four years ago, the 21-year-old has been fretting about her shoes ahead of next week’s athletics competition in Jakarta.

“Ahead of the Games, my main worry is I’m not getting the right shoes for the high jump,” she said from her training centre in the north Indian city of Patiala.

“I never had customised shoes and I’ve been managing with a model which is unfortunately no longer available in India. I still have an old pair of them and I’m going to use them in Jakarta.”

Athletics is a difficult pursuit in cricket-mad India, where Olympic sports survive largely on government grants and Barman’s unique feet have made the task doubly difficult for the girl from a poor family in the east Indian town of Jalpaiguri.

The locally manufactured shoes were no good, so Barman tried several brands before realising she would have to make do with standard-sized footwear.

The extra width of her feet means every landing is painful and the shoes do not last long either, but she has so far resisted the suggestion to have her extra digits surgically removed.

“It’s a problem and I think I may have to live with it for the rest of my life,” she said.

“Some people did suggest surgery to get rid of the extra toes, but I’m not sure about it. Anyway, I’m now focusing on the Asian Games and will think about it later.”

Her coach Subhas Sarkar said the search for footwear had been fruitless.

“We tried everything we could. We tried to source locally customised shoes, but the quality was appalling, and they all got the pressure points wrong. We tried to get shoes from people who work with para-athletes, but for some reason, it didn’t materialise either.”