The gold rush

Preeja Sreedharan,28,10,000 m

Preeja Sreedharan knows the strain and solitude of a long-distance runner. The journey began when she traipsed and trekked every day on the high ranges of Idukki,Kerala,to reach her school,10 km away at Rajakkad.

Hers has been a long haul to the glory in Guangzhou. Preeja lost her father when she was four. Her mother worked as a domestic help. Her eldest brother Pradeep dropped out of school and became a carpenter to fund her and her elder sisters studies. After watching Preeja run 10,000 m in 31.50.47 seconds and win the gold,Pradeep said,We were sure she would one day come home with a medal,we werent expecting it in Guangzhou! She said,I feel proud to have won the gold after missing out on a medal at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi. I was disappointed with my CWG performance,a miserable seventh,and was determined to do well at the Asiad.

Her talent was spotted in school by her sports teacher TR Ranedran. Life changed for her,when he decided to leave Rajakkad for a school in Thodupuzha town and to take Preeja along with him. Her mother had been struggling to raise three children. If I had abandoned her,it would have been the end of the track for Preeja, says Ranedran. After completing her schooling while living at Ranedrans house,Preeja joined Alphonsa College in Pala,known for grooming many of Keralas sportswomen. It became the turning point of her career,as she found a full-time coach in Thankachan Mathew,and a college that gave her free education and boarding a far cry from her small mud-house at Mullakkanam.

A head clerk at the Railways,she has brought her family to live with her at her quarters in Palakkad. There her friends and well-wishers gathered to celebrate her victory. But her mother Ramani was missing from the hullabaloo. She had returned to her village in Mullakkanam,where it all began,to offer prayers for her daughters victory.

No Hurdle Too High

Sudha Singh,24,3,000 m steeplechase

Sudha Singh did her usual thing at Guangzhou. With oiled,plaited hair,henna on hands and a mangalsutra dangling around her neck,the 24-year-old raced over the hurdles,and when Chinas Jin Yuan threatened to steal her thunder,she remembered the disappointment of missing out on a medal at the Commonwealth Games,and grabbed the moment to complete a chest-finish and snatch the gold medal. 8220;I had this at the back of my mind that I will not make the mistakes I committed during the CWG. Towards the end,for a moment I felt that I would not be able to win but I did not give up. No,I had never thought that I will win a gold,8221; she said at an event in Lucknow.

From Raebareli to Guangzhou has been a remarkable story for the athlete. From a middle-class family her father is a clerk with a telephone company and mother a housewife Singh put in years of hard work to master one of the most daunting track-and-field events,the steeplechase. Six years ago,her coach Vimla Singh persuaded her to shift from mid-distance to steeplechase. The coach also negotiated what could have been the biggest setback to Singhs career an early marriage. In 2004,Sudhas elder brother requested me to ask Sudha to get ready for marriage. I requested them to give her two more years, she says. Marriage plans were shelved and she was selected for the Junior Asian Cross Country Championship in China. An athletes life provided her with a job as a ticket collector with Central Railway,Mumbai. She hasnt been home for two years now,occupied as she was with training camps. Waiting for her is husband Jitendra Bahadur Singh,a subedar. We got married in April 2008 and a week later,I left for the national camp. He never complained. I wouldn8217;t have been able to do it without him, she says.

Amritsar Express

Mandeep Kaur,22,4215;400 m

She still remembers the time when she was prompted by her coach to focus on athletics rather than her first love,basketball. She was 15 and training as a cager in her hometown Amritsar,but coach Baljinder Singh had other plans for her. Seven years later,she admits with a chuckle that her height would have come in the way. It was difficult to leave basketball. But my coachs decision proved a blessing, says the 22-year-old.

She trains at the National Institute of Sports,Patiala,under Ukrainian coach Ayuri. A month before the CWG,she flew to Ukraine with other athletes for training. Travelling all over the world is no big deal for Mandeep anymore,but ask her family what her first international trip meant to them. She was in Class XII and went to Canada on her first tour abroad. Nearly the entire town came to see her off, Harpal Singh,Mandeep8217;s elder brother says.

But travelling wasnt something Mandeep always liked to do. When she was a child,she had to go to Bathinda for a school sports meet. She was unsure about leaving home, says Harpal. Her father seemed to understand and asked her to stay back. Strangely,that triggered something in Mandeep,because she then insisted she would go to Bathinda, he adds. Three years ago,she started racing at the national level. Soon enough,sports meets became the norm for her and she enrolled at a high school in Kairon for its sporting facilities. At Kairon,she had to stay alone for a long period. There were times when she used to call and say she hated the place. But whenever father decided to put an end to the homesickness,Mandeep toughened up, says Harpal. As the pivotal runner in the 4215;400 m team,that toughness came in handy.

The Hat-trick Girl

Manjeet Kaur,28,4215;400 m

Minutes before the Indian contingent boarded the flight to China,Baldev Kaur had a piece of advice for her daughter. Manjeet, she said,Please do not drop another bowl of soup on yourself before the event.

The mother was worried because in Doha four years ago,a day before the 4215;400 m race,Manjeet spilled a bowl of soup on her thigh at dinner. She suffered burns and the doctors advised her to rest. When she told us over the telephone,we blamed it on destiny, Baldev says. But Manjeet and her team still went on to win the gold.

It was less destiny,and more her lineage,that led Manjeet to athletics. Born to former long jumper Harbhajan Singh in a tiny hamlet called Abbal Khais Sainpur in Punjab,she grew up with athletes,picking up their obsession with fitness,their capacity for hard work. She always wanted to be an athlete. My brother and I were national-level athletes and I was posted with the Punjab Police at the time. When I would come home on weekends,she would watch us practise, says Harbhajan.

After achieving medals galore in the junior meets,Manjeets focus on a career in athletics got sharper at Khalsa College,Amritsar. A few national records fell by the wayside as she rose to the top. At Guangzhou,she made it three in a row: after the golds in Busan 2002 and Doha 2006.

The Model Athlete

Sini Jose,23,4215;400 m

There is something about the adrenaline rush of a relay runner,of being part of a race quartet one of those rare team sports in athletics of leaning back and receiving the baton that is thrust in your hand and speeding through the tracks to find the next runner. There is something about standing together at the end of it all,a foursome wrapped in the national colours,the gold dangling from the neck. Twenty-three-year-old Sini Jose might never have known that. She might have become a hospital nurse,like many girls,including her two elder sisters,in Kerala,but for her physical education teacher in school.

She was in Class V,going through the paces of a new student at St Sebastian High School at Anikkadu near Muvattupuzha. While conducting a compulsory run,I could see the potential of a good athlete in Sini, recalls Jaison P Joseph,who was her coach in school. But Sini,who did well in academics,was a reluctant athlete.

A bronze medal in a 400 m event at school finally convinced her parents that their youngest daughter could become a good athlete. My parents believed in my ability more than I did. Even after I started winning in the nationals,I didnt really believe I had it in me to win medals for India at the international level,8221; says Sini. She was part of the gold-winning relay team at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi. But before the relay at the CWG,I was very tense because of my lack of belief in my ability in a team sport, she says.

Jose Joseph,her farmer father,with little means to promote her financially,did what he could motivate her and send her to Alphonsa College in Pala,a hothouse for women athletes,from where she was picked for the Beijing Olympics. All we could do was encourage her and pray to God, says Ritamma.

There was someone else who had a big hand in developing Sini the athlete: her coach Raju Paul. He believes Sini is a model short-distance athlete. Her running technique is very good, he says. There is no bobbing of the head and she runs in one smooth motion. Plus,she has a wonderful physique. She is perfect for 400 metres. I have always noticed that she is better in the relay than in the individual quartermile. Somehow,when she gets the baton she is completely charged up.

by Shivani Naik,Nihal Koshie,Shaju Philip,Wajiha Shah,Nitin Sharma,Siddhartha Sharma