During races and training sessions in India, steeplechase athlete Avinash Sable craved competition, because he was miles ahead of other runners at home. Now Sable, 27, is getting a taste of running against the best in the world. Soufiane El Bakkali, the Tokyo Olympics gold medallist, was the toast of the home crowd during the Rabat Diamond League on Sunday night. El Bakkali found an extra gear on the home stretch to stave off the challenge of Ethiopia’s Lamecha Girma. Like in Tokyo, two of the world’s best had pushed each other to the limit to produce an exciting finish. 🚨 Limited Time Offer | Express Premium with ad-lite for just Rs 2/ day 👉🏽 Click here to subscribe 🚨 El Bakkali produced a world-leading time of 7 minutes, 58.28 seconds and looks to be the favourite for the World Championships next month. Sable, used to leading races at home, didn’t really challenge the top three at any point in the race yet his fifth-place finish was special for the army man from drought-prone Beed in Maharashtra. His 8:12.48 in an elite field of runners was a national record, and the eighth time he has rewritten the mark. He is bound to go faster, his long-time coach Amrish Kumar said. Record ⚠️ Avinash Sable created new National Record in 3000 meters Steeple Chase in @Diamond_League Rabat 2022. Performance 8m:12s.48ms. Rain continues @Adille1 @anjubobbygeorg1 @ril_foundation @jswsports @KritikaBhasin13 @jon_selvaraj @AndrewAmsan @rahuldpawar @WorldAthletics pic.twitter.com/o5OsZAfuFm — Athletics Federation of India (@afiindia) June 5, 2022 Kumar, a South Asian Games gold medallist in steeplechase, has good reason to be optimistic. “This year, if he is injury-free, Avinash can clock 8:04. Actually, he could have run this fast last year at the Tokyo Olympics but had tested positive for Covid-19 twice. It affected his training and he also didn’t get an exposure tour after contracting Covid. "This year, he is getting back to his best and with the World Championships and Commonwealth Games coming up, he could spring a surprise. I believe he could have won bronze at the Tokyo Olympics (Kenya’s Benjamin Kigen finished third with 8:11.45). Maybe, this year he will,” Amrish, who coached Sable till the Tokyo Olympics, said. Kigen finished eighth in Rabat, a small victory for Sable. Army coach Amrish calls Sable a ‘human engine’. When Sable moved to steeplechase from cross-country running in early 2017, he joined an experienced group of athletes who were much faster than him. “Within a year, he not only bettered the other runners in the group but also broke the national record. The reason I call him a human engine is because running is his life. "He trains, eats, rests, trains. He has a one-track mind and it only focuses on running. He is hardy, strong and blessed with endurance. Maybe I am putting two and two together but he hails from a place which is very hot and has water issues. His body is used to enduring a lot from a young age,” Amrish said. Tough beginning As a Class-1 student, Sable used to walk and jog 12 kilometres to school and back to Mandava village in Beed. His parents Mukund and Vaishali grew wheat on their farm and also worked as daily contract labourers. To uplift his family and have a steady job, Sable joined the Indian Army. From the freezing cold in Siachen to the scorching summers in Lalgarh Jattan, Rajasthan, Sable faced extreme weather during his early postings. He was spotted by Amrish during a cross-country race in Hyderabad. The 27-year-old had finished eighth in that race but Amrish noticed the natural running style. “When I asked him to take up steeplechase in January 2017, he was willing but a little apprehensive. Maybe it was because of the hurdles. But I had told him back then that he would break the national record not once but many times. Just before he travelled for the Diamond League, we had a conversation. We discussed how many seconds he would break the national record by,” Amrish said. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Avinash Sable (@avinash__sable) Sable is currently training in Colorado Springs with distance coach Scott Simmons. In May, he proved he is an all-rounder by breaking Bahadur Prasad’s 30-year-old 5,000m national record in a high-quality field in San Juan Capistrano. Sable is also the half-marathon record holder. Amrish believes no distance running record is safe if Sable remains fit and hungry. “I am predicting that he will also break the 10,000m national record,” his long-time coach said. “With Sable, your predictions never go wrong.”
