When they walked out for the discus throw event at the national meet in August,12 of the 15 athletes taking part knew they would only finish fourth or lower. The battle for podium is essentially between Seema Antil,Krishna Poonia and Harwant Kaur. Since 2003,barring injury,this troika has dominated the discus throw event in Indian athletics. Unlike other events where the countrys hopes largely depend on just a single performer,all three discus throwers are seen as medal hopes at the Commonwealth Games. The competition between the trio is intense. The battle for supremacy between Krishna and national record holder Seema is abrasive. Harwant is only a little less intense than Seema and Krishna,who endlessly try to out-throw each other. There is some bad blood between the two,but more about that later. Once the competition begins,the others fall by the wayside with throws which are 10 metres less than what the leaders achieve.They have booked their berths for the Commonwealth Games so the national meet is a platform to earn bragging rights before one of the most anticipated events on Indian soil. Athletics was the obvious choice for the trio. Krishnas aunt is Arjuna awardee Neelam Singh,Harwants aunt was javelin thrower Gurmeet Kaur while Seema Antils brothers were both hockey players. Despite the sporting pedigree,the discus event wasnt what 27-year-oldSeema expected to adopt. I was taller than the rest of the girls even while growing up. I always wanted to be a high jumper or a long jumper. I also set state records in the jumps. Seema said. Indeed she was rather amused when she saw the discus for the first time at 15. I thought yeh thali ke saath kya karna hoga. (What do I do with this plate?) I didnt know whether this was even a sport, said Seema,who grew up in Khewra village near Sonepat. But once she got older and bigger,Seema decided the throws would be a better option. Standing six-one like her rival Krishna,Seema indeed looks like a strength athlete. Compared to the two Amazon-like women who tower half a foot over her,30-year-old Harwant seems like she is in the wrong event. While Krishna and Seema both speak with booming voices,one has to strain to catch what Harwant has to say. Unlike Seema who made the shift from athletics,Harwant was always a thrower. I was quite big as a child,so everybody told me to be a shot putter. Of course,later on everybody realised that I wasnt going to be big enough. But by then it was too late for me to shift disciplines. So I continued with throwing, Harwant said. Realising it would be difficult to compete with larger athletes in the shot put,she shifted to the discus. If Harwant thought her relatively small build would hamper her career,28-year-old Krishna almost gave up the sport. Having never played sports as a child,Krishna first threw the discus at 19 when she went to college in Hissar. She soon made it to the national camp in Patiala. A year after she picked up the sport,Krishna got married. I was to become a housewife, Krishna said. Krishna went to live with her husband in Gagarwas,a small village in Rajasthan. That village was very backward. Their biggest achievement is sending sons to the army. Girls,are expected to get married and stay at home. Krishna though was lucky as her husband supported her. He had taken part in sports and his family was educated. His grandfather used to be a communist. It was his grandfather who encouraged me to continue playing sport, Krishna said. The villagers were shocked to see Krishna in a tracksuit. Women in Gagarwas only step out of the house in a ghungat. It was a culture shock for them, Krishna recalled. But in 2006,after she won a bronze at the Asian Games,the villagers became much more supportive. Because of Krishnas success,many girls in the village have taken up athletics. Krishna gave birth to a son,a year into her marriage. Competition though means she cant spend as much time with him as she wants to. I miss him a lot. I get to meet him only once every 15-20 days. At times I wonder if he will remember me. He is at the age where he constantly wants to know where I am and insists that I stay with him, Krishna said. While she talks on the phone to her son,the strain of staying away from her son is showing. The 2012 Olympics will probably be my last event. After that I want to focus on my family, Krishna said. Harwant,the oldest of the three,is also looking at hanging up her boots. With a smaller reach,Harwant has to spin faster than the others to get the same centrifugal force to power the discus. While she asserts she has never felt better,staying fit is getting progressively harder. And then there are other concerns. I am now 30. I am still competing because my parents have always supported me. But they also want me to get married. Krishna is lucky her husband supports her,but it is difficult for me. While Krishna and Harwant are looking towards the twilight of their careers,Seema is struggling to get back on track. At the nationals,while Harwant and Krishna vie for the lead,Seema languished at a distant third. India most promising discuss thrower when she started out,Seema won gold at the World Junior Championships followed by a bronze at the same event two years later. Seema recalls her national record throw of 64.84m in Kiev in 2004 and how most of Khewra led by the sarpanch piled into buses and showed up at New Delhi airport to receive her after that. But all that could be a lifetime ago. Times change, she reasoned. Seemas career was hit by a series of doping-related incidents. She lost the World Junior gold after testing positive for pseudoephedrine,a stimulant. Then in 2006 on the eve of the Asian Games,just a few months after winning silver in the Melbourne Commonwealth games,she was withdrawn from the team after samples collected during a camp returned positive tests for a banned substance. However,following an Athletics Federation of India probe,which proved that she was innocent,Seema was reinstated although she still did not take part. Krishna made the most of Seemas absence to win bronze. Humiliated and embarrassed,Seema struggled to return to her usual form. Krishna took pot shots at her after she had initially tested positive. The both of them have hardly seen eye-to-eye after that. Seemas performance dipped.There was a point where I thought that I should quit. It was national athletics coach Bahadur Singh who urged Seema to compete. He told me to start concentrating on my throws and not bother about what people think. At the nationals,it is Harwant who wins,followed closely by Krishna. Seema comes third. The defeat rankles her,especially as she has finished behind Krishna. I used to be the best. I am training as hard as I have ever trained. I will prove once again why I am the best, Seema said. Come the CWG,she will have a chance to redeem herself,and the rivalry will play itself out once again.
