K. Prem Kumar reserved his best for the last on Wednesday. The Tamil Nadu long jumper lit up an uneventful day at the inter-state championship with a leap of faith.
Trailing Karnataka’s Arshad by 10 centimetres ahead of his sixth jump, Prem went for broke. The high-risk effort was worth eight metres flat and the gold was his. The distance, a meet record, was also Prem’s personal best.
The next big thing in Indian athletics went from the depths of despair to the high of three landmarks in a matter of one jump. That is the beauty of sport. It’s not over until the last ball or the last kick or the last jump, as in Prem’s case.
Having returned to India only last week after a training stint in the US, the ICF employee looked below par throughout. Arshad’s 7.85m in his penultimate jump proved to be a red rag to a bull. Like a true champion, Prem produced a special effort even on a bad day.
Another standout performer also belonged to the hosts. Taking part in her first national meet after a lengthy injury layoff, G. Gayathry ran a finely-controlled race to take the 100m hurdles gold in 13.97 seconds ahead of state mate J. Hemashree. The winner, with relief palpable on her face, said she was emotional at returning to big-time competition.
M.R. Poovamma, Tintu Luka and Sahana Kumari all won gold but the well-known athletes failed in their common objective of cracking the World Championship qualification mark. A gold at next month’s Asian Championship is enough to reach Moscow, but depending on the result on one meet is fraught with danger.
Poovamma had been hoping to be pushed in the 400m here. But she was forced to compete with herself after the 200m-mark. Having obliterated the field ahead of the home stretch, the Karnataka girl touched the tape with consummate ease. Her effort of 52.85s was 0.50s short of the World qualification mark. Poovamma and her coach N. Ramesh were confident of pulling it off at the Asian Championship.
Tintu could only finish her 800m in 2:04.14, well below the Moscow requirement of 2:01.50, even though she finished the first lap under one minute. Like Poovamma, Tintu lacked competition. Maybe running in tougher races abroad might have boosted the World Championship chances of the two.