Before leaving for the World Athletics Finals in Monaco, Anju Bobby George had said that the warm, Mediterranean climate would enable her to give off her best. That she managed a 6.75m, her season’s best, on her way to winning the silver medal, shows that her reading was right.Anju’s excellent leap at the fag end of the season indicates that the Indian jumper has the potential, still, to be among the best. After the silver at the Finals, Anju, who just about made it to the Finals on the strength of her gold at the Incheon Asian meet, has now climbed three places to be fourth in the world, with 1253 points. Her string of poor performance leading to the Helsinki World Meet where she failed to repeat her Paris (2003) act, might have had to do with lack of proper preparation. It had also not been quite justified that she had been able to do only one decent jump at the Athens Olympic Games, also a warm, Mediterranean country. However, this asthmatic problem, which she had been suffering for quite some time, did hamper her training leading up to Helsinki. In Helsinki, too the weather wasn’t something she could cope with. "Weather conditions were not favourable for me," she had claimed after finishing fifth with a sub-par performance at the World Championships. Asthma, she has concluded, has been responsible for her string of sub-par performances. But recently, under expert medical supervision, recommended by both IAAF and WADA, she took some medicines. This has helped her disease symptoms subside. However, Anju will be leaving no stone unturned to defend her title at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games slated to be held in March 2006.
