Milkha Singh and PT Usha are some of the pioneers of athletics in our country. They strove hard in 200 and 400 metres and created a niche for themselves in these events. Try as they did, they couldn't reach the then prevailing levels of excellence. Lack of modern equipment, training methods and encouragement was part of the problem but within the limited resources available to them, what they achieved was indeed remarkable.
Much later, Anju Bobby George arrived on the scene to create her own space in athletics in long jump.
In the International Association of Athletics Federation ( IAAF) World Athletics Championship Final in Monte Carlo in September 2005, Anju Bobby George claimed a silver medal with a jump of 6.70 meters, while Tatayana Kotova of Russia claimed gold and Grace Upshaw of USA claimed the bronze. IAAF event is a la crème de crème event in which only top 8 of the best are allowed to compete and rightly it's called the Champion of Champions' Meet.
Although this was the first ever medal by an Indian athlete, male or female, in an IAAF event Anju was distraught and disappointed she couldn't bring gold to the country. Years of training, single-minded purpose devotion to long jump had ended without her cherished medal, gold.
Prior to Monte Carlo, Anju had shown to the World what she could do in Long Jump. In World Championship in Paris in 2003, she had finished with a Bronze medal.
Anju started her career with Heptathlon and Triple Jump and later on concentrated on long jump. She came into prominence by winning bronze medal in 2002 in Commonwealth games at Manchester.
Anju's success was mainly to due to tremendous support from her husband, Bobby George who was a national champion himself in triple jump. Recognising that Anju had the potential to compete and win at the international level, George gave up his own career and devoted his entire time as her coach Thus started a unique athletic team of wife and husband as athlete and coach. There are few parallels in world for such a combination.
Meticulous planning and sheer, intense hard work brought success in its wake when Anju climbed to the sixth place in the world in just two years.
Now after 9 long years, following the disqualification of Tatyana Kotove of Russia, Anju has been declared the winner and conferred gold medal in IAAF event, the first for the country!
What is important to note is crime doesn't pay as doping is now tantamount to cheating. Doping was widely prevalent a decade ago and even now one hears of many athletes taking drugs and winning the race. Be it Toure de France, weightlifting or sprint, in spite of World Anti Doping Agency's (WADA) best efforts, it has not been able to eradicate drugs from sports and users continue to gain unfair advantage over their competitors. Some of our own athletes have been caught taking drugs and thus ruined their careers. Some of our coaches have also been not above aboard and have more often encouraged unsuspecting newcomers to take to drugs. Nor our administration, famous for their internal fights to grab power, has been of any help in this regard.
It is interesting to note that not less than 500 Indian sportspersons in weightlifting and, track and field events have been caught by anti doping disciplinary panel (ADDP).
Under such conditions in India, Anju created a record for the first time as a gold-medallist amongst top 8 of the best.
What is important to note is, even if it took 9 long years of wait and suspense, reward came to her from the international body giving her the much deserved gold and as much for her own clean methods of participation and honest methods she adopted.
That she is the first Indian to win a gold medal in World Athletic meet is significant. That a girl opened the door for India in this prestigious event is icing on the cake.
Finally, our athletes should know there is no easy path for success. Years of sacrifice by the athlete, their family, coach and going through rigors of practice, not giving up when the going is tough are all stepping stones for success. Trying a short-cut approach and resorting to drugs in the long run will be suicidal and result in ignominy for the athlete, family and the country as well.
Anju and her coach and husband Bobby George have shown what is possible and what could have easily gone wrong had they followed crooked ways.
We should salute Anju for her tremendous efforts, Bobby for giving up his own career to become her coach and the Georges for bringing glory to the country.
The Government should suitably give recognition to the wonderful pair of athlete and coach, wife and husband team who strive hard, gulped their disappointments and kept their work simple and honest. Success had to come to them even if it was tad late.
Comments
0 comment