World Athletics Championships 2023 Preview: Indians in action, form guide

Led by Neeraj Chopra, Indian athletes head to the 2023 Athletics World Championships with hopes of winning multiple medals, backed by vital experience and improved form.

Crown jewel: Although he’s rattled a few nerves with an injury at the start of the season, Neeraj Chopra has come back strongly. He’s unbeaten this year and, with a throw of 88.67m in the Diamond League, is third in the season’s top lists. | Photo Credit: Getty Images

Avinash Sable probably doesn’t have very fond memories of the 3000m steeplechase final at the 2022 Athletics World Championships in Eugene, Oregon.

There had been tremendous expectations from him in the build-up to the competition. After breaking the national record for the first time in the end of 2018, he had broken it a further seven times in three years. It had seemed that he was getting faster with almost every race.

READ - World Athletics Championships Budapest 2023: Schedule of Indian athletes, full squad

By those standards, Eugene was a disaster. In a historically slow race, Sable finished 11th with a time of 8:31.75s — his slowest time since 2019. It wasn’t that the Indian was out of steam. “He wasn’t fatigued at all. He felt like he hadn’t even run a race. He was disappointed, but more than that, he was just confused,” coach Scott Simmons said after that performance.

Eugene had been something of a curveball. Sable’s strategy until then was to stay in the middle of the pack before attacking towards the end. That’s because he wasn’t confident of taking the lead early on, Simmons explains. “His fastest time at that point was about 8.16 (8:16.21s to be precise). You have to be a lot faster than that to compete for the medals. He genuinely didn’t know whether he would be able to run that fast,” Simmons says.

But run fast he did. Just a few weeks later, he shrugged off the disappointment with a thrilling performance in the Commonwealth Games.

Displaying a tremendous finishing kick in the final lap, he won the silver medal, setting a new national record of 8:11.20s. Not only was this the biggest result of his career, but it also ended a 32-year CWG podium streak by endurance-running heavyweight Kenya.

Sable then followed this up with an almost identical performance this year — a time of 8:11.63s in the Silesia Diamond League in July. It’s fair to say that there’s far less doubt in Sable’s mind now compared to a year ago.

He may have only finished sixth in Silesia, but his timing is a sign of what to expect when he returns to the World Championships in Budapest. “He still has more in the tank. He could probably run in the 8-point single digits right now. He knows he can do that. He knows that a medal might come in that range. That gives him a lot of confidence. He didn’t have that confidence last year,” says Simmons.

Setting new limits: Avinash Sable (blue) set a national record of 8.11.20 at the 2022 Commonwealth Games, the biggest result of his career. | Photo Credit: Getty Images

But Sable is not the only Indian athlete for whom this observation holds true.

While it’s certainly Olympic champion and 2022 World silver medallist Neeraj Chopra who is the standard bearer of the Indian contingent at Budapest, what’s clear is that the rest of the 28-member strong squad isn’t there just to make up the numbers.

“All our athletes will perform well,” says Adille Sumariwalla, president, Athletics Federation of India. “We have come to a stage where athletes are showing where they belong. We are almost there. I am not just hoping to feel strongly that most of them will come up with their personal bests. And if they perform their best, they should finish above 6–8 in most events.”

While it remains to be seen whether India can improve on the solitary medal it won at Eugene last year, the fact is that the Indian contingent (without shot putter Tejinder Toor due to injury) is probably the best prepared — certainly a lot more than a year ago.

Subdued start: At his first Worlds, Murali Sreeshankar made his way to the final, where he finished seventh with a jump that was 4cm shorter than what he jumped in qualification.  | Photo Credit: RITU RAJ KONWAR

Sable wasn’t the only Indian athlete who went to Eugene on the back of impressive performances before struggling to match that form at the World Event. With a jump of 8.36m, Murali Sreeshankar had the world’s third-best jump of 2022, leading into the World Championships, while Jeswin Aldrin had a wind-assisted jump that was 1cm more than that. At his first Worlds, Jeswin exited in the qualification round. Murali made his way to the final, where he finished seventh with a jump that was 4cm shorter than what he jumped in qualification.

While there were naysayers who criticised the Indian performance, long jumper Sreeshankar feels that this wasn’t an unexpected result. “It’s very difficult for us to just go, debut in the World Championships, and win a medal. It requires more and more experience, and we have to get used to the high-quality field. The last time I competed at the World Championship final, I was the only athlete who hadn’t competed in any Diamond League. I was the only newbie out there. We have to get more experience in the global circuit so that we’ll be able to be competitive among them,” Sreeshankar says.

Indeed, as Sreeshankar says, “When Wang [Jianan] won the long jump gold at the World Championships with 8.36m, everyone was surprised that this guy jumped 8.36m. But no one realised that from 2015 to 2022, he had been in every World Championships final. He has been there in every Olympic Games final. He has been among the best, missing a medal here and there, but he used all his experience on his last jump at the World Championships, and he won the gold medal. That kind of experience makes a big difference.”

It’s not just Sreeshankar who has made this observation. “When I discussed it with other athletes, my friend [triple jumper] Abdullah [Abubakar] and [100m hurdler] Jyothi Yarraji — both of whom will be competing in Budapest — were telling me this. Jyothi raced with [Olympic champion] Jasmine Camacho Quinn in Poland. Abdullah competed in the Diamond League. They were saying that the experience of competing with those top guns really helped them a lot in competitions like the Asian Championships [where Abdullah would win gold]. Abdullah had fouled the first attempt and then had a mediocre jump just so that he could reach the top eight in the second attempt. He was eighth or seventh when round two was over. So, it was very important for him to get the third jump correctly so that he could qualify for the top eight. But he could do that because he had that experience from the Diamond League. So, he managed a good jump in the third one and then the next one, and he got a gold medal. That’s the kind of experience we get when we compete with all these top-quality athletes,” Sreeshankar says.

Promising prospect: Jyothi Yarraji, who raced with [Olympic champion] Jasmine Camacho Quinn in Poland feels that the experience of competing with top guns was really helpful in competitions like the Asian Championships.  | Photo Credit: RITU RAJ KONWAR

But the 23-year-old has taken those lessons to heart. If he felt like a newbie in Eugene, he is a veteran in the European circuit now. He took part in his first Diamond League in Monaco following last year’s World Championships and has taken part in another two — in Paris and Lausanne — this year.

He has been very consistent and is heading to Budapest on the back of a massive 8.37m jump that won him a silver at the Asian Championships.

Sable, too, has seen improvement as a runner after making a training base overseas. Last year, he moved to Colorado to train with Simmons and a group of accomplished endurance athletes. He has been training at the high-altitude centre since. “Initially, when I came to Colorado, I was not able to train with the same intensity as the rest of my group. But now I’m starting to match them,” he told Sportstar then.

Sable’s doing better than that. “When he first came to Colorado, he would struggle to run the same programme as Paul Chelimo [Rio Olympic silver medallist and Tokyo bronze medallist in the 5000m]. Right now, he’s running at exactly the same pace. Chelimo is probably at his peak as a runner, and Avinash is right up there with him. He’s not afraid of these guys anymore. That’s going to give a lot of self-belief,” says Simmons.

Sable’s not the only Indian training in Colorado. 800m runner Krishan Kumar ran a personal best and the third fastest time by an Indian to win silver at last month’s Asian Championships. Parul Choudhary, too, is heading to Budapest with a gold medal at the Asian Championships and a personal best (9.29.51) that’s nearly 10 seconds faster than her previous best of 9.39.09 that she recorded in Eugene.

Further bolstering Indian hopes is the fact that multiple athletes are not seeing any dips in performance early on in the season.

Javelin thrower Manu DP (right) looked like he was caught in a mini-rut in the middle of the season but got back above 80m with a throw of 81.01m that won him a silver at the Asian Championships.

Kishore Jena, who will be one of three Indians in the javelin throw at the World Championships, is also hitting the best form of his career, throwing a personal best of 84.38m at the Sri Lankan national championships earlier this year.

Peaking at the right time: Kishore Jena, who will be one of three Indians in the javelin throw at the World Championships, is also hitting the best form of his career. | Photo Credit: RITU RAJ KONWAR

Aldrin, who endured massive swings in performance last season — from a personal best of 8.37m at the Federation Cup to a disappointing 7.78m at the World Championships— looks like he has started hitting his groove.

After going three competitions outside the 8m mark following a bout of COVID and a groin injury, Aldrin, who is the world leader this season with a jump of 8.42m, jumped 8.22m to put himself in the mix of potential medal winners in Budapest. And he’s confident he has more in him. “I’m saving the big jumps for the Worlds,” he told Sportstar following that performance.

While Aldrin might be a dark horse in the men’s long jump, among the favourites in the men’s javelin event is Neeraj.

Although he rattled a few nerves with an injury at the start of the season, Chopra has come back strongly. He’s unbeaten this year, and with a throw of 88.67m in the Diamond League in Doha, he’s third in the season’s top lists. As he looks to peak at the World Championships, it’s going to be hard to bet against him improving on that throw. A year ago, all of India’s hopes would have rested on Neeraj’s shoulders. This year, there’s hope that the weight of expectations can be more fairly spread out in the Indian contingent as they peak following a generally smooth preparatory cycle.

It certainly is on Sable, at least. “Last time around was about experience. This time, I think we will be looking to win medals,” says Simmons.