John Abraham, India’s 400m hurdler, was national coach Bahadur Singh’s pick of the seven events that India put up mediocre performances in at the Osaka meet. The women’s relay team, which boarded the flight from here with big promise, disappointed. “It was very poor performance,” he said on his arrival from Japan on Tuesday.Triple jumper Renjith Maheshwary’s performance to was rated as not so encouraging. He was satisfied with other events. “All gave their season best or were close to it,” he said.“The world is a bigger stage, a different platform altogether. It’s not like the Asian championships or the Asian Grand Prix competition where India generally win medals. To win at the global level, preparation has to be on different lines, with at least five to six tough competitions prior to world meet.”The following were some of the observations of chief coach Bahadur Singh on India’s show:MEN’S 400m H• Abraham ran a splendid race — 49.51 seconds, a national record, in the second round. He was the only Indian to have beaten his own performance there.MEN’S SHOT PUT• Navpreet Singh had a bout of fever prior to the meet. It hampered his training for a week. Otherwise he could have done better. It was good performance nonetheless. He recorded 19.70m in Amman, in Osaka it was 19.35. Not too bad.MEN’S DISCUS• Vikas Gowda failed to repeat his national record-breaking performance of 64.96m at the Osaka preliminaries, where his best was 61.22m, but it was okay. 61.22m was second best this season.WOMEN’S DISCUS• Krishna Punia failed to repeat her Doha Asian Games performance (61.53m), reaching a best of 57.17m. Lack of global level experience could have been one of the factors responsible for her not so encouraging performance. But still a throw of 57-plus is her best this season. WOMEN’S LONG JUMP• Anju Bobby George failed to find her rhythm in the final. In the final round, she couldn’t set her runway on the jumping pit, which halted her progress. Taking into account her overall performance, the 6.60m in the preliminary round should be considered good. Of the three important competitions including Asian meet, she participated so far, her performance has been satisfying. Anju had otherwise claimed that she is fit.MEN’S TRIPLE JUMP• Renjith Maheswary also failed to find his rhythm. Of the three jumps in the preliminary round Renjith’s take-off in the first two was far from the take off board. His third jump was a good, but landing was not good. That cost him few centimetres. But it worries me why Renjith slipped far too behind his best of 17.04m. He needs to be more consistent otherwise it will be difficult for him to excel at the international level.WOMEN’S RELAYThey were expected to figure in the final, and achieve qualification time for the Beijing Olympics. Singh questioned Manjeet Kaur’s wisdom of straying into a different lane. From lane nine Manjeet - running the second leg — drifted to lane seven before the stipulated mark.• The organisers showed me the replay for at least half-an-hour. I was bit surprised. How could Manjeet — with her vast experience— do it? But a silly mistake apparently under intense pressure to perform cost the team dear. ‘No motivation’New delhi: Indian women’s team leader Manjeet Kaur was travelling to Jalandhar from Delhi, and wasn’t available for comments, But Chitra K Soman, who ran the third leg, revealed that she got the baton at the last place, and then didn’t have the temperament to push hard. “When I got the baton, the team wasn’t in a match position. Therefore pushing hard wasn’t on my mind at all,” said Chitra.The anchor runner — Iyleen Samantha — who plodded home in 56 seconds, must be thinking the Chitra way.Taking into account the overall performance of 3:39.55, the worst ever, the Indians couldn’t have entered the final anyway. The team finished last in its heats.
