Hima Das was the toast of the nation last year after bagging a silver medal at the Asian Games in Jakarta. The 400m runner followed that up by winning the Under-20 World Championship, and gave the nation hope of a serious prospect for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
However, the 19-year-old, who has a personal best of 50.79, saw her progress on the track derailed after she decided to take a six-week break from training at the start of this year to study for her Class XII exams.
The responsibility of getting Das back to her best has fallen on the shoulders of Galina Bukharina. The the 74-year-old joined the Indian athletics team as a foreign coach almost two years ago. Coming from the United States, she is famous for coaching the Soviet Union’s women’s 4X400 relay team to a world record timing of 3:15:17s in the Seoul Olympics in 1988.
Bukharina now has her eyes set on taking Indian athletics to the next level. In the country at the moment for the Indian Grand Prix in Panchkula, she is busy training the likes of Asian Games medalists Muhammed Anas, Rajiv Arokia, M Poovamma and V Vismaya.
One of Bukharina’s most promising students, of course, is Das. The coach wasn’t particularly pleased by the youngster’s decision to take such a lengthy break from training, and reckons the two will have to begin work from scratch.
“Even though such things are not good in the middle of the season, it is still a long route for the Olympics. To keep your focus, one should have every thing in life settled. When she rejoins the camp, we have to start from scratch. She needs one or two years of practice again. But she has the talent to do so and she knows how to remain focused. We will sit down and discuss when she returns,” the American was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.
Bukharina recently spent 79 days in Turkey training the Indian athletes. She is impressed by their hard work but wishes they were more punctual and braver while competing on home soil.
“Sometimes they have this ‘escape feeling’ when they compete in India. When we were in Turkey or competing abroad, they never hesitate to compete. But here in India, they are not consistent in competing,” she said.