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Journalism of Courage
With no real expectations to live up to, India’s 17-member athletics contingent, a veritable bunch of no-hopers, will land in Beijing only to make the numbers with the lone mission of ensuring they get only defeated and not disgraced.
Star long jumper Anju Bobby George and her 16 teammates would require well nigh a miracle to come anywhere near the podium in Beijing and with the bar of international standard being raised every day, they just can hope to give their best and pray to hang around little longer to soak in the Olympic ambience.
Being the face of long jump in the country for quite a while, Anju adds sheen to the contingent but the Kerala jumper is clearly past her prime — a spent force desperately trying to relive her salad days.
The bronze medalist in the 2003 World Championship did her best in the Athens Olympics, finishing a decent sixth with a leap of 6.83m. Anju won the silver at the IAAF World Athletics Final the next year as well clearing 6.75m but the graph soon started to dip.
Things look even gloomier for the Khel Ratna awardee this year. At a time when some of the jumpers have made it a habit to clear the 7m mark, Anju could not go past 6.55m this year, which pretty much sums up her prospect in Beijing.
Instead, women’s 4x400m relay team, which clocked 3:28.29s in the second leg of the Asian Grand Prix in Thailand in June to make the cut, seems ready to make its presence felt outside the medal bracket.
In fact, Chitra Soman, Sini Jose, MR Poovamma, Mandeep Kaur, S Geeta and K Mridula would hit the track with realistic chances of improving the team’s Athens show, where they had finished seventh clocking 3:28.51s.
Among others, eyes will be on US-based Vikas Gowda, who fizzled out in the qualifying round at Athens. The giant discus thrower, who comes from the same university that produced Michael Jordan, would get a second opportunity to put the record straight even if it might not suffice for a medal.
Triple jumper Renjith Maheswary has breached the 17m mark — his best 17.04 is in fact a national record — but with more and more jumpers going past 18m, the harsh reality is the Indian does not stand any real chance in Beijing.
In 10,000m, Surender Singh has shown consistency and set a new national record of 28.02.89 in England en route to book his Beijing berth. Though he has succeeded to become the first from the Garhwal Rifles to make it to the Olympics, Surender is surely not going to give his illustrious opponents any run for their money.
Among the women, national discus champion Krishna Poonia just about managed to qualify for Beijing but her effort was far from her personal best of 61.53m which fetched her the Doha Asian Games bronze.
In contrast, Harwant Kaur holds more promise, achieving Olympic A qualification standard with a hurl of 61.09 in the Inter-State Athletics Championship in Madurai. The fact, however, remains that their personal best are still some 10-odd metre behind the some of the best in the business.
Prospect is hardly brighter in heptathlon where JJ Shobha, Sushmita Singha Roy and G G Pramila are almost destined to finish as also-rans. For country’s lone woman 10 miler Preeja Sreedharan or 400m aspirant Manjit Kaur would consider themselves lucky if they don’t wilt in the heats.
