The hype prior to the Rio Olympics was clearly overblown. Not that it was the first time in more than a decade this was happening in Indian athletics. But the performances were such, especially those just in time to beat the deadline for Olympic qualification, that even the Sports Authority of India joined the optimistic brigade to forecast possible athletics medals for India in Rio.
The truth hit everyone hard once the athletics events unfolded at the Games. Just one athlete, steeplechaser Lalita Babar, made it through to a final. The rest faded out as was expected by those familiar with Indian athletics and world standards.
Mercifully, no such projections are being made prior to the World Athletics Championships in London this time. There is only a fervent hope that javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, world under-20 champion last year, would progress to a top-six finish.
All hopes on Neeraj Chopra
The men’s javelin competition should be one of the high points of the championships, not forgetting Usain Bolt’s swan song and Mo Farah’s farewell. Two of the 93-metre-plus throwers among four in history are expected to be in the field. Both are Germans, Johannes Vetter and Thomas Rohler. Vetter threw 94.44 metres in Luzern, two months after Rohler, the Rio Olympics champion, touched a personal best of 93.90 metres in Doha.
Then, there are five athletes with marks over 88 metres this season. In this field, Chopra, the 19-year-old junior world-record holder (86.48) stands at 14th with a season best of 85.63 metres achieved at the Fed Cup in Patiala.
Six of Chopra’s top-10 throws have come in 2017, an indication of his progress from last year when he struggled to reach the Olympic standard of 83.0 early on in the season. But finally he found a big throw of 86.48 metres in Bydgoszcz, Poland, to not only win the World Under-20 title but also claim the world record in the junior section, as well as post a national record.
Throws can provide a surprise or two in big championships. Javelin forecasts, in particular, are prone to take a beating in Olympic Games and World Championships. Keshorn Walcott of Trinidad and Tobago was in no one’s reckoning when he won the Olympic gold in London in 2012 with a throw of 84.58 metres, a national record and an Area junior record. He was 19 years old then and was the reigning world junior champion.
Chopra has a bit of history to back him.
At the last World Championships in 2015, Julius Yego of Kenya was also an “outsider” but produced a world-leading throw of 92.72 to win the gold, ahead of rest of the field that included Rohler, Pitkamaki and Vetter.
An indication of things to come in London, especially for Chopra, was, however, available at the Monaco Diamond League meeting on July 21 when Rohler took the gold at 89.17 metres, Vadlejch second at 85.43 and Vetter third at 85.14. Chopra was seventh with 78.92 metres, one of his poorer efforts this season. The windy conditions did prove to be a handicap for all the throwers that evening in Monaco.
A top-six finish at the Worlds will do Chopra a world of good. If he is able to pull off an impossible-looking medal, he would be joining long jumper Anju Bobby George (bronze in 2003) as the only Indians to have climbed the podium at the world championships.
It is not going to be easy for the young Indian, who has been without a specialist personal coach since Aussie Garry Calvert quit his job when Athletics Federation of India and SAI refused to entertain his demands. It will be tougher for his compatriot, Devender Singh Kang, who has surprisingly slotted himself in at the 20th position in the world lists this season with his effort of 84.57 metres in Patiala this May.
No other hopes
Outside of men’s javelin, India cannot look forward to anything of great significance in the London championships. The global standards are such that our athletes often find it extremely tough to get past the opening round. There is much talk of better performances early on in the season – foreign coaches are brought in, camps abroad being arranged (nothing this season) and athletes given some exposure in a few international meets. But when it comes to the crunch, the old story repeats itself.
That India topped the medals tally at the Asian championships in Bhubaneswar should not provide the country with any false sense of superiority over the others. It was a devalued meet which allowed the Indian athletes to go unchallenged in some events because of the absence of several leading stars from China, Japan, Bahrain and Qatar.
Let’s take a look at the Indian challengers this time: Quarter-milers Mohammed Anas and Nirmala Sheoran could not go past the first round at the Rio Olympics. Anas may have an outside chance of going into the semi-finals this time, with his new national record of 45.32 seconds showing promise. But since clocking that time in May, the 22-year-old Kerala sprinter has shown a downward curve in his performance.
Anas’s Asian championships win came in 45.77 seconds. Sixteen runners in the London field have cracked 45 seconds this season. Anas is in 32nd position among the qualifiers. His task is daunting.
Nirmala is an enigma in Indian athletics. She came last year, clocked a sub-52 in Hyderabad, got selected for Olympics and then timed 53.03 seconds to go out in the first round in Rio. Many close observers of her career feel this time would not be much different, even though she has shown some level of consistency at home. If she fails this time also, there would be serious doubts about the genuineness of her performances.
Siddhanth Thingalaya promised much with his national record of 13.48 seconds in the 110-metre hurdles in the US to clinch his World Championship berth. But he could not finish better than fifth at the Asian championships with a below-par 13.72. Despite his single-minded approach, the Maharashtra athlete is well short of world standards year after year.
G Lakshmanan had a distance double at the Asian championships and that ensured his place in the squad to London. His personal best of 13:36.62 in the 5,000 metres may not match the rest of the field and he may well go out in the preliminary round.
Annu Rani has been knocking on the doors of stardom for a couple of years now. She could not reach the standard for Olympics last year but clinched one for the World Championships with a throw of 61.86 metres at the Fed Cup in Patiala in June against the standard of 61.40.
Like several others who qualified early for the World Championships, Annu Rani’s performance has also slumped closer to the meet. She was down to 57.32 for bronze at the Asian championships and slipped further to 54.29 in the inter-state. In her World Championships debut, it would be a surprise if the 24-year-old Uttar Pradesh thrower makes it to the final.
Heptathlete Swapna Barman has taken giant strides in her fledgling career this season. She posted six personal bests out of seven events this season at the Fed Cup and the Asian Championships put together, missing it only in the 200 metres. She also improved her personal best from 5,400 in 2014 to 5,942, but that still fell short of the IAAF standard of 6,200 points.
Barman was excluded initially by the selection committee, which retained only distance runner Lakshman from among the five who made the grade at Bhubaneswar. What prompted the committee to change its decision later is not known. Some observers alleged power politics in the federation.
Experts in the combined events opined that Barman would be hard put to retain her form in London and was likely to be well short of the 5,900-point mark that she had compiled at home. The 32-woman field in London have 30 heptathletes with PBs of 6,100 and above, with Olympic champion Nafissatou Thiam of Belgium towering at 7,013 points.
Having failed to attain the tough qualification mark of 11.26 seconds in the 100 metres, Dutee Chand must have been thinking of the prospects of fighting a renewed case against the IAAF in the hyperandrogenism petition at the Court of Arbitration for Sport when the invitation came from the international body to fill in vacant slot in the short dash in London.
Dutee’s 11.30 seconds in Delhi in May came in handy when it came to the IAAF ranking list. Only 37 athletes qualified through the direct entry standard of 11.26 seconds (a nation can enter only three athletes in an event and thus the world lists for 2017 will show at least 79 athletes with 11.26 or better) and the rest of the 56-woman entry chart was filled up by the ranking process.
Dutee has not been in great form this season as she was in the Olympic year. She couldn’t cross the first round in Rio, finishing seventh in one of the heats with 11.69 seconds. She had clocked a national record of 11.24 in Almaty, which later came in for scrutiny and was declared as “doubtful” by the IAAF statisticians. Her prospects look dimmer than last time, although she was full of pep when the news of qualification reached her, according to reports.
Three Indian men (KT Irfan, Devender Singh and Ganapathi Krishnan) and one woman (Khushbir Kaur) have been entered in the 20 km race walking category. They will do well to gain a top-15 or top-20 finish. The same should apply to the marathoners (T Gopi and Monika Athare), who can at best hope to come within the top-25.
The Indian relay teams in 4x400 metres have also not done as well as they did last year. Once again the timings clocked last year – 3:00.91 for men and 3:27.88 for women – towards Olympic qualification clinched the relay spots for India.
In Rio, the men’s team was disqualified after raising hopes of challenging the best while the women finished seventh in one of the heats with 3:29.53.
Despite the optimism expressed by the new US-based Russian coach Galina Bukharina, the teams look likely to bow out in the first round. “Unless some other teams drop the baton,” said a coach.