“Ab bhook aur ho rahi hai (Now, I am feeling hungrier),” Animesh Kujur said after breaking the men’s 200 metres national record. An outstanding run around the bend and smooth sprinting down the straight made Animesh a class apart at the Federation Cup as he also qualified for next month’s Asian Championships.
The ‘bhook’ the 21-year-old spoke about wasn’t in reference to his dinner plans. Rice and dal was his lunch hours before he lowered the national mark from 20.52 seconds to 20.40.
Now Animesh wants to become the first Indian male runner to break the 20-second barrier.
And he’s got the perfect role model. Even as a national school-level football striker, he was fascinated by Usain Bolt.
“I want to become the first athlete (from India) to run below 20 seconds,” Animesh said. “I have liked Bolt from the beginning. Even when I was playing football and not into athletics, I knew Bolt was the fastest man in the world,” Animesh said.
When he opted for the ‘Lightning Bolt’ pose after the official timings flashed on the giant screen, it didn’t seem hackneyed. The six-foot-two-inch sprinter has an air of lightness about him. He posed once again for the cameras, beaming because a monkey was off his back, finally breaking the national record.
Martin Owens, Animesh’s coach at the Odisha Reliance Foundation High Performance Centre in Bhubaneswar, hugged and shook hands before lauding him. “It’s a pleasure to coach you,” he said.
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The fastest Indian man over 200 metres is the title Animesh had been gunning for.
Animesh runs the 100 metres as well, and on Monday won the silver in the shorter sprint event, stopping the clock at 10.32 seconds. However, not able to break the national mark, set by Amlan Borgohain in 2022, was playing on his mind because the 200m is his pet event. He had clocked 20.65s and a wind- assisted 20.59 last year.
“I kept thinking that this is my event but wondered why I was not able to break the record,” Animesh said.
However, everything came together at the Maharaja’s College Stadium on Thursday.
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He clocked 20.69 seconds in the second heat in the morning, the only sprinter to go under 21 seconds. “I gave about 85 percent in that race (heat). I knew the evening race would be faster.”
Two competitors, in particular, had the speed to challenge him. Manikanta Hoblidhar, the silver medallist in the 100 metres, is strong around the bend, while Amlan is known to be a good chaser in the final phase of a race.
“Mani was going to run fast, so he (Animesh) had to hang onto him and run close. Amlan was on the inside. It was set up beautifully,” was coach Owens’ post-race analysis. Giving even an inch away was not an option, Animesh knew.
“Mani is a 10.2 runner (in the 100m) and I chased him and coming from the bend, I had good pace,” he said.
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Working to improve
When Animesh was unable to break the record last year, he focused on two aspects – his start and his speed-endurance.
But the bend is where he has aced it since being coached by Owens.
“I told him (before the race), work the bend and relax down the straight. He was really smooth. When he first came to me, he couldn’t run a good bend. If you see videos from two years ago, everything was wrong at the bend. His top-end speed is also getting better each year,” the coach says.
“This (qualifying for the Asian Championships) wasn’t in the plan. The plan was the World University Games.”
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Owens believes sky’s the limit for Animesh. “We don’t know how fast he can go, we are just scratching the surface when it comes to ability.”
Animesh trains in Bhubaneswar while India’s other three top-rated sprinters – Gurvindervir Singh, Manikanta and Amlan – are coached by James Hillier, the director of athletics programme at Reliance Foundation, in Navi Mumbai. When all four are on track, like in the 100 metres final, there is anticipation of a high-quality race.
However, to satisfy his ‘bhook’, Animesh needs to get more races with stronger fields under his belt. “We need lots of guys running fast like in the 100 metres, we need fast races,” Owens felt. “There’s no substitute to running with quicker runners.”
Animesh will train and compete in Europe later this season and “20:40 (seconds) won’t cut it there. He went last year too and came back a better athlete.”
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Though he is making waves now as a sprinter, Animesh, a student at the Army School in Ambikapur, Chhattisgarh, was earlier into football. Wanting to avoid injury, he opted for athletics. At his first track and and field competition, he chose an odd combination of events; the 100m and the shot put.
However, he got a clear direction when he walked up to Owens during an Under-23 championship in 2023, two years after he had changed sports. “I just saw a foreign coach and asked him if he could coach me.”
Owens asked him to appear for trials, and since then, Animesh has gone from strength to strength.
