Protistha Samanta’s CWG final journey: 4:30 am alarms, rain and a mother’s grit

5 min readMumbaiJul 26, 2026 11:54 AM IST India's Protistha Samanta competes on the floor exercise during the women's team final and individual qualification of Artistic Gymnastics at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. (AP)Protistha Samanta’s mother, Shubhada, recalls the number of Kolkata monsoons both of them would literally run the two whole stops from Chingrighata to Salt Lake. Getting stuck in potholed vehicular traffic was no excuse for the strict coach Jayprakash Chakraborty, who passed away in 2024. “If practice was at 9 a.m, even reaching the SAI centre at 9.01 a.m invited a scolding from the coach. So both of us would leave the rickshaw if we thought we were getting late, and start running,” Shubhada recalled.All those long days that started at 4 a.m and ended at 10.30 p.m, inclu