Asia’s fastest woman is from Pune

Vedangi Kulkarni , age 20, became the fastest Asian woman to cycle around the globe.  Kulkarni is from Pune’s Nigdi area. She spent 159 days on her bicycle – covering 300 km daily and hence completed the mandatory 29,000 km required to qualify for bicycling across the globe.

In the evening, she left for Perth in Australia from where her record-setting cycling
trip started in June.
The certificate confirming her status as the “fastest woman in Asia” to cycle across the globe; will come only on submission of documents to the concerned authority. That process can take a while, sometimes 8-9 months – more than it took her to pedal around continents.

But Kulkarni is patient and resilient – qualities that served her well in achieving this feat. It has not been all smooth riding for this student of sports management at the University of Bournemouth in the UK. Earlier, she had to fight a head injury and get decent grades to bag a 50% scholarship to the university. She then took up cycling. “During that time, I dreamt of cycling around the world and breaking the current record”, she said.

Two years on, she is all but confirmed as the fastest Asian woman to cycle around the world. Her journey has been eventful – she was mugged at knifepoint, rode through forest fires and had close encounters with wildlife.

Way to go Vedangi!