Harsha Vadlamani

A judoka takes ‘ice bath’ in a drum filled with ice and water as others wait for their turn at the end of their day’s practice at the Judo Training Center in Gurdaspur, Punjab, India. August 04, 2016.

Indian Olympic athlete Avtar Singh has blazed a trail that 15-year-old Rohit hopes to follow—to sporting glory and, perhaps more important, to a secure government job.

The first Indian man to qualify for the Olympics in judo in more than a decade, Singh, 24 years old, grew up here, in the same small town where Rohit lives, and trained for more than seven years in the same high-school gym.