World Athletics Championships 2023: In the end, it does matter for team India

If you were an Indian in Budapest’s Nemzeti Atletikai Kozpont (National athletics Center) on August 20, you would have got to marvel as the night sky above the stadium was lit up in a massive pyrotechnic display shot off over the Danube to mark St. Istvan’s day, which celebrates the foundation of the Hungarian nation and coincidentally timed alongside the start of the World Athletics Championships.

If you were in the stands seven days later there was no less of a firecracker finish on the track below. It was as sustained and spectacular as anything the previous Sunday. That blockbuster evening has to surely rank with some of the greatest hours in Indian athletics history as well. As a journalist from India, you got to understand a little bit of what reporters from the track and field powerhouses of USA and Jamaica must be happily enduring.

Powerhouse performances followed one after the other with almost no break. Neeraj Chopra underlined his claim as the greatest Indian athlete off all time as he completed his gauntlet with a World Championship gold — the one medal that had eluded him in his remarkable career thus far.

It was a result that wasn’t just (admittedly an understatement) noticed in India. If you were an Indian on the streets of Budapest, you couldn’t have gone through the 29 ^th of August without at least one stranger accosting you — confirming if you were from that country and then congratulating you for Chopra’s massive achievement.

Keeping it steady: Parul Choudhary learned from Sable’s botched race. There was no cleverness in trying to jostle for race leadership or overtake across lanes. | Photo Credit: AFP

Keeping it steady: Parul Choudhary learned from Sable’s botched race. There was no cleverness in trying to jostle for race leadership or overtake across lanes. | Photo Credit: AFP

Even as you took that in, there were two other Indians who produced lionhearted performances of their own in the same event. Kishore Jena and DP Manu proved they belonged at this level, both finishing inside the top six. Jena in particular had shrugged off a late visa, the absence of his coach and the shudder of competing in his first World Championships with what has to rank possibly the most nerveless display by an Indian rookie. The 27-year-old, who had never even competed internationally before 2023, threw a new personal best and was fourth at one point ahead of Olympic silver medallist and world leader Jakub Vadlejch before eventually finishing fifth. “I think it was one of the best Indian performances. After he had so much difficulty getting here, he still did his personal best. What more can you ask of someone,” Chopra would say, praising Jena whom he high-fived on the field as well.

Rockstar performance: The 27-year-old Kishore Jena, who had never even competed internationally before 2023, threw a new personal best and was fourth at one point. | Photo Credit: AP

Jena’s performance was the best result by an Indian not named Anju Bobby George or Neeraj Chopra — at the Athletics World Championships. At any other edition, it would have been heavily feted but on the night on the 28 ^th, it almost went unrecognised.

Even as you held your breath with the unprecedented performance in the javelin throw, and even as Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem was making and missing his final attempt, which would confirm gold for Chopra, Parul Chaudhary was making top runners from African distance-running giant Ethiopia gasp for theirs.

Choudhary, who came into the tournament with a personal best of 9:29.51s in the women’s 3000m steeplechase, would finish the tournament nearly a quarter of a minute faster. One of the slowest, on paper, in her heats, a couple of days before, she would tear up that script to finish ahead of former World Champion Emma Coburn. She had improved her personal best by over five seconds in that race and, by just making the final, had created history. But she wouldn’t be done yet.

If she was one of the slowest in the heats, Choudhary was dead last amongst the finals qualifiers. Facing another mountain to climb, she sprinted all the way to the top. The sight of her accelerating past Ethiopia’s runners in the last kilometer is one that will go down as amongst the all-time sporting highlight reels of Indian athletes. Choudhary would finish 11 ^th, smash Lalita Babar’s national record by four seconds and also qualify for the Paris Olympics with her new national record of 9:15.31s. Breathing normally as she walked off the track in the finish and not nearly as ecstatic as someone who had written her name in Indian sporting history might be expected to be, you are left wondering just how high Choudhary’s ceiling could be.

This was already more sustained excellence inside an hour than many generations of Indians would have been used to over decades but there was even more as the Indian 4x400m relay team attained its best ever result at the Worlds with a fifth-place finish. The squadron of Muhammad Anas Yahya, Muhammad Ajmal, Amoj Jacob and Ramesh Rajesh had already run the race of their life a day earlier when they clocked 2:59.05s, to smash the Indian (previously 3:00.25) and Asian relay record (2:59.51) by nearly half a second to finish second in their heats. Not only had they beaten rivals from Great Britain, Japan, Jamaica, Botswana and Trinidad and Tobago, there was even a moment when final leg runner Rajesh showed the bravery and the gumption to take the lead from World Champion USA even if for a fraction of a second in the last lap.

The team seemed exhausted after that race, and some may have considered the result a bit of a fluke. But the awesome foursome proved it was nothing like one, for, in the final, they would stop the clock at sub 3 minutes once again. Anything in the sub-3-minute range is world class. Amoj Jacob had boldly spoken about the team attempting a 2.58.00-minute run. A few years back, it would have been a prediction that would have been laughed off as foolishness.

But Amoj’s prediction wasn’t bluster. Ajmal had to leap over a fallen runner ahead of him and Rajesh had to run around another. Both instances caused both valuable microsecond delays and loss of forward momentum. On another day, 2.58.00 was certainly possible, and the team certainly has the legs for it.

The ridiculousness of the results on the final day that contributed the five of the six finalists for India over the course of the World Championships more than made up for the previous seven days which were liberally seasoned with similar sounding tales of Indians struggling to come to terms with the magnitude of the occasion.

Speedsters: The Indian 4x400m relay team attained its best ever result at the Worlds with a 5th place finish. | Photo Credit: Getty Images

If the Indian campaign had saved their fireworks for a spectacular finish, the early few days had been a series of damp squibs. This World Championships could be considered a sequel to the 2022 campaign, which had been the team’s most successful in history — thanks to Neeraj Chopra’s silver and five other finalists. Indeed, if this was a movie, and you didn’t know the all-star conclusion, you might certainly have been tempted to walk out following the first act. What was particularly disappointing was the fact that the potential was almost certainly there. This had been one of the best prepared Indian teams at the World Championships. Athletes had competed abroad regularly, there were no obvious holes in training and there weren’t any obvious warning signs that the players, unlike in previous years, had been peaking too soon.

Long jumper Jeswin Aldrin had the world’s leading outdoor jump this season, while Murali Sreeshankar was jumping 8 meters almost as habit.

Praveen Chitravel had set the Indian national record while Abdulla Aboobacker and Eldhose Paul appeared to be peaking well. Avinash Sable, who trains alongside Parul Choudhary, was apparently running better that two-time Olympic medallist Paul Chelimo in training.

Aldrin would just about make it to the final of his event — a credible performance no doubt — but he wouldn’t get the result he had hoped for. Sreeshankar struggled with a late start to his event — which saw him cool down a lot faster than he anticipated. The triple jumpers simply spooked. Sable’s seventh-place finish in his qualification round though (only the top 5 automatically went through) was probably the least expected outcome.

The training had been intense, his focus over the past year razor sharp. Yet when it mattered, he struggled to find a line and stick with it. When he should have pushed, he held back. Instead of chasing for a medal — a result he fully believed he could attain — Sable watched the finals from the stands.

It was a painful experience. What hurt even more was to see Abraham Kibiwot, the Kenyan he had nearly run down on the final stretch at the Commonwealth Games, take bronze. “Anything other than that would have hurt less,” he would admit later.

That lesson, painful as it was, is an important one, not just for Sable but also Sreeshankar, Aldrin and the triple jumpers too. The World Championships is a big stage to falter at but several of them are grateful that it’s come before the all-important Olympics.

Sable knows better than to hold himself back now. Expect him to shake off this result and crack his national record. Sreeshankar knows what to do when he has 15 jumpers taking off before him. Aldrin knows the feeling of competing over two days.

This is an Indian team that will learn. They were learning in the competition itself. Parul Choudhary learned from Sable’s botched race. There was no cleverness in trying to jostle for race leadership or overtake across lanes. She picked a line early behind the leading group and stuck there like a lamprey until she crossed the line.

India’s Avinash Mukund Sable (Left), Japan’s Ryoma Aoki (center) and Ethiopia’s Getnet Wale (Right) competes in Men’s 3000m Steeplechase during the World Athletics Championships at National Athletics Centre on August 19, 2023 in Budapest, Hungary. | Photo Credit: GETTY IMAGES

Even Neeraj, the man who seemingly knows how to perform where he needs to, found things to learn. After Sreeshankar told him about how difficult it was to stay warmed up after his qualification misfortune, Chopra adjusted his own pre-event training so that he was still fresh by the time he threw.

While there were disappointments no doubt, and much to improve upon, there is much to build on as well. The final result (1 medal and 6 finalists) of India’s 27-member contingent at Budapest has to be looked at realistically. European powerhouses Germany and France have one silver between them despite sending 75 and 78 member strong contingents.

“When you compare this World Championships to 2022, there were many events in which we had finalists last time but didn’t do so well this time (there was no finalist in the triple jump and women’s javelin). But this time there are a lot of finalists in events where we didn’t have them before (men’s 400m relay and women’s steeplechase). Things are getting better,” Chopra would say.

On being asked what his goals were now that he had achieved all there was to achieve, Chopra would say the javelin throw doesn’t have a finish line. This is also true for athletics in general. Before his event, he had advised the athletes who had lost to keep their heads high. “If you lose don’t be dejected; go back and train and again. If you win don’t celebrate too much. Go outside and train again,” he would say.

Those are words that the team should take to heart. If you trust the process, they too can one day hope to star in the finish as Chopra did. He certainly believes so. “Keep working hard. We Indians can do great things.” he would say after his gold medal.