Apart from a few good performances, the National Open athletics championship was largely a huge disappointment as far as quality was concerned, writes Stan Rayan.
As Mayookha Johny came up with a big leap in long jump, Tintu Luka got ready for the women’s two-lapper at the National Open athletics in Kochi the other day. The two athletes — Mayookha from Kozhikode district and Tintu from the neighbouring Kannur district in Kerala — are the most promising talent to emerge in the country in a long time.
Mayookha is 20 and Tintu just 19. They are both quiet, a bit shy too, but when they get into action, coaches, fellow athletes and spectators expect fast timings and big jumps — in short, the fireworks.
Mayookha raised the women’s triple jump record at the Open by nearly 20 centimetres — her personal best too went up by a similar margin. Two days later, her career best effort in the long jump moved ahead by almost 10 centimetres.
“We’ve not seen a talent like this since Anju hit the big stage some seven years ago,” says T. P. Ouseph, who coached the World Championship bronze medallist during her early years. “And Mayookha is much better than what Anju was at her age.” A study of Anju’s progression over the years and Mayookha’s fresh, young graph offers an interesting picture. Anju’s best in 1977, when she was 20, was just 6.20m. It went up to 6.37 when she became 22. Anju made big progress at the international circuit meet in Bhopal in February 2000 with 6.59m and her best, 6.83m, which is also the current National record, came at the 2004 Athens Olympics at the age of 27.
Mayookha, now 20 and 11 years younger than Anju, virtually has a huge 24-centimetre advantage to start with, over the country’s best long jumper, with a personal best of 6.44m in Kochi. The good thing is that she has been sort of consistent above 6.30m in the last few major national meets. And in just over a year, her personal best in the long jump has gone up by 19 centimetres.
Her progress in the triple jump is equally stunning. While Anju, who still holds the National record of 13.67m, set in December 2002, had a best of 13.13 at the age of 20, Mayookha’s best is 13.54.
Surprisingly, Anju — she is Mayookha’s idol — has played a big part in the youngster’s progress. “Only after Anju chechi (sister) began getting those big jumps and beating the Russians and Americans did we start believing in ourselves. We owe it all to her. Now, we have even started dreaming about seven metres,” says Mayookha, who is coached by Jose Mathew at the Thalassery SAI Centre.
Mayookha’s goal for this year is 6.50m in the long jump and 13.70m in the triple jump. She is hopeful of coming up with a 6.70-plus jump in the 2010 Commonwealth Games and something above 6.80 on road to the 2012 London Olympics.
Mayookha, whose dad M. D. Johny was a bodybuilder and a former Mr. Bombay, is very fast and explosive and this gives her a big advantage. “But she sort of folds in when she hits the sand, this has to change,” says Ouseph, a former National coach for jumps. “There has to be a more open, chest out action while landing which could push her further.”
Tintu did not win a gold medal in Kochi. But the youngster, coached by P. T. Usha at her academy, broke her own junior National record while clocking 2:04.94s on way to winning the 800m bronze.
“Watch out, she will be chasing Shiny’s sub-two-minute record in a couple of years,” says Usha about her golden girl. Apart from Mayookha’s stunning feats, the National Open, where Railways retained the overall title, was a huge disappointment as far as quality was concerned. Railways’ 400m hurdler Joseph Abraham, making a comeback after a hamstring injury, and ONGC’s Asian middle-distance champion Sinimole Paulose were crowned the best athletes of the meet. Services’ K. Krishna Mohan broke his own national record in the sprint hurdles — he became the first man to go below 14 seconds — for the championship’s lone mark but many of the big stars were shockingly way below their best.
The women’s discus had some big names including National record holder Seema Antil (personal best 64.64m, National record) and Krishna Poonia, who went to the Beijing Olympics with a personal best of 63.41m, but shockingly both were around 10 metres below their best.
The case was almost the same in men’s shot put where, for the first time in a decade, the contestants failed to cross 18 metres in a National Open.
The Indian athletes came up with some very impressive performances in qualifying meets just before the Olympics but suddenly they seemed to have lost their form and focus.
And doping is one issue that is being discussed very frequently in the country these days. The presence of syringes and needles at the Maharaja’s Stadium in Kochi, the venue of the National Open, further strengthens the suspicion.
“Unless syringes and needles vanish from meet venues, our young athletes will be a dejected lot. They will soon lose motivation,” says Usha.
Still, Lalit Bhanot, the Athletics Federation of India secretary, maintains that the sport is clean. He said that the poor form at the Olympics and after was because the athletes had given their best while qualifying for Beijing and had nothing left to offer after that. “Also, there is no continuity in training, that’s why performance suddenly goes down,” says Bhanot. “Our athletes are clean; they have been tested by WADA (the World Anti-doping Agency) many times. Doping is not an issue at all.”
But clearly, the athletics fraternity doesn’t seem to be convinced.
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