A feel-good moment for athletes
Renjith Maheswary finally getting that white flag up and Joseph G. Abraham defying age and form to strike gold! Both of these happening at the open in Chennai, and it means Indian athletics has found its wind back at least towards the tunnel end of a dramatic season.
It was not long back when some of our elite track and field athletes held their heads down in shame through the entire period of qualification and the actual games, and were given some cover by those shooters, grapplers and a boxer and shuttler.
While most Olympians gave a miss to the Open, the pressure of getting back into the loop was higher on the likes of Renjith and Sahana Kumari who failed to live up to our expectations at the Games.
Renjith was one of the poor performers at the Olympics after he failed to record a legitimate jump in all the three attempts in the triple jump event, but the Railways athlete did well by winning gold in Chennai.
“I feel so relieved to finally get that white flag up. There was a lot of pressure since the Olympics and without this one meet, my season would have been a complete flop,” said Renjith.
The case of 31-year-old 400m hurdler Joseph is somewhat different from that of Renjith. The national record holder who many thought had ended his career on silver — in the inter-state, after getting gravely closer to an Olympic qualification — had that grit to win again, giving one of those feel-good moments for Indian athletics post Olympics.
“It was sad to miss out on Olympic qualification, which I lost by 0.18 seconds in the Federation Cup. But that is past and I feel happy to better my performance from silver to gold,” said Joseph.
Results:
Men’s triple jump: 1. Renjith Maheswary (Railways) 16.72 m; 2. Amarjeet Singh (Railways) 16.03 m; Arpinder Singh (ONGC) 15.92 m
Men’s 400 m hurdles: 1. Joseph Abraham (Railways) 50.87 sec; 2. Satender Singh (Railways) 51.06 sec; 3. C. Binauquito (TN) 51.25 sec
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