Off the pace,on the podium

Celebrating exuberantly after winning a second consecutive gold at a the police games was high jumper Raminder Singh of the CRPF who had a best jump of 2.03m. Raising his hands rythmically every time he began his run to get the sparse crowd behind him,he would culminate every successful jump with exuberant celebrations,pointing to the sky and gesturing to members of the audience.

“I know that my mark is well short of my personal bests which is 2.06m. But even at the national level I will have to jump at least 2.10 or 2.15 to be in contention. Here I can dominate and that always feels good,” says the 27-year-old.

Even among those who finish far from medal contention,the competition is viewed with a complete lack of cynicism. Shobha Dhodi,a constable with Gujarat Police finished a distant last in the women’s 5000m run. She was languishing several laps behind as the winner — L Chaobachanu,who finished in 17 minutes 19 seconds and even as the rest of the pack finished a minute later.

Slowly and steadfastly finishing her course,Dhodi seemed not to care that her resoluteness to finish the race was delaying the start of the men 5000m event. Eventually Dhodi finished the race some 7 minutes after the last contender at the stately pace of a km every five minutes. However she was far from discouraged.

“This was my first proper race,”she gasped excitedly even as she exited the track to the sound of applause – mostly encouraging. Having joined the police force in the general quota,Dhodi had not had the benefit of proper training or even a regular coach before the competition. “Once I had started running,I couldn’t just quit the race could I? It would look so shameful. I will be competing next time as well. I hope I will get proper coaching and give a much better performance,” she said.

CRPF in lead CRPF surged into the overall lead at the championship,winning four gold medals on Day 3 to take their tally to 9 gold medals. Anisha Vijayan won the women’s triple jump with a mark of 13.09,Barnali was victorious in the women’s pole vault,Raminder bagged gold in the men’s high jump,while Chaobachanu was triumphant in the women’s 5000m run.

They pipped Day 2’s leader BSF who failed to add to their tally of 5 gold medals. Punjab Police were in third spot with three gold. However testament to the strong competition Punjab have provided so far is the fact that they have the highest number of second (9) and third place (10) finishes. Going into the last day of competition,With the highest number of second finishes (9) Punjab would certainly hope to convert some of their silver medals to gold on the final day of competition to move up on the medal tally.