Bobby’s Flop show is a big hit

KOCHI, July 21: "Ladies and gentlemen. Here is a new SAF Games record, also a new Indian National record. Along with the achievement...

KOCHI, July 21: "Ladies and gentlemen. Here is a new SAF Games record, also a new Indian National record. Along with the achievement, the record breaker has become the first from the sub-continent to sail over the coveted six-metre mark in women’s high jump," said the announcement full of excitement at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Chennai on December 20, 1995, the third day of the athletics events of the SAF Games.

It was only a beginning for Bobby Aloysius, then a 22-year-old high jumper, from remote Chemperi in Kannur district of Kerala who wrote a new chapter in the ongoing Asian Championship at Fukuoka, Japan, by setting a National record of 1.85 metres (old: 1.81) on Monday.

Her jubilant coach, TP Ouseph said here on Tuesday: "She spoke to me from Japan last night. A jump measuring 1.85 m, is certainly in a class of its own."

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In the same breath, he lamented that the jumpers were being treated unfairly in India. "The jumpers of the country are not given any exposure whereas throwers are providedtraining for longer duration. Also, the AAFI (Amateur Athletics Federation of India) is meting out a stepmotherly treatment to us. We are ignored and insulted whenever we ask for inclusion in teams for international meets. Otherwise, jumpers like Bobby would have found themselves in the medal reckoning at the Asian level, by this time."

Bobby has come a long way since her days at the Kerala Sports Council (KSC)-run Sports Division, Kannur. The Chennai-based Customs officer’s perseverance and strenuous training has done her wonders. The 1.85 effort was two centimetres better than the third-placed mark at the 1994 Hiroshima Asiad.

Her display in Fukuoka, just three centimetres behind winner, was also a telling reply to those overzealous AAFI officials (including a few of from her own native Kerala), who deprived her of a then National mark of 1.81 metres at the recent Federation Cup at Chennai.

The officials reportedly claimed that the bars were uneven, while she was performing. They simply overruled theobjections of an accredited high jumper from Tamil Nadu, who was also officiating the event. Bobby, however, was a last minute inclusion in the team for Fukuoka.

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Ouseph, her disciplinarian coach, now well into the 50s, is a peculiar trainer. He never asks for medals from his wards. Instead, whenever they compete, he seeks records from them. " Owing to lack of competition, even mediocre athletes, sometimes, get a place on victory stands," he told ENS during the National Games in Bangalore. "So, I always ask my trainees to go for the best."

Bobby, the first Indian woman to eschew the traditional straddle style for the "Flop", is surely deserving of every encouragement.

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