Coach Nambiar to target relay gold at Pusan Asiad

The women’s 4×100 team of that meet too had three members from Kerala — Usha, Shiny and Saramma. Ashwini Nachappa was the fourth member. The quartet came a close second to China.

With a sponsor to back him, one gets an impression that much of Nambiar’s problems seems to be over.

“I have now five exceptionally talented girls — R Sukumari, Nicy Joseph, Sheeba Joseph, S Jiji and Linnet K Mathew — practising under my supervision. Being sponsored by V-Guard, themajor stabiliser manufacturing company, I have little worries right now as far as finances are concerned. I will build a team for the future comprising these girls.

“My target is a gold medal in one of the relays at the 2002 Asian Games in Pusan. If everything goes well, my wards will bag a gold there. And I can call it a day after that,” he said.

When pointed out that Usha’s records are being broken one by one even at the varsity meets, Nambiar shot back: “Records are meant to be broken. Don’t compare Archana V Gupta (who broke Usha’s 19-year-old record in 100m in the Calicut University meet a few days ago). Usha ran a sub-12 time even before attaining the age of 18 (in 1981 inter-varsity meet at Gwalior). Archana, if I’m right, broke the 12-seconds barrier (at the Kerala Games) after crossing 20 years.”

Nambiar also predicted that his protege R Sukumari would win the shorter sprint at the forthcoming All-India Inter-varsity meet at Gwalior. “And then tell me who is better, Archana or Sukumari.”