Despite a spirited effort and returning a season best time, Asian Games gold medallist Indian men’s 4x400m relay team was heartbroken after narrowly missing a berth in the Olympics final at the Stade de France here on Friday.
The Indian side, comprising Muhammed Anas, Muhammed Ajmal, Amoj Jacob and Rajesh Ramesh, gave its best to clock 3:00.58 and finish fourth behind host France (2:59.53), Belgium (2:59.84) and Italy (3:00.26) in the second heat under a cloud cover and ideal weather. The top three in the heat qualified for the final.
The Indians, who saw Anas clocking 45.79 to complete the first leg at the eighth place, lacked a bit of luck as second leg runner Ajmal, the fastest runner of the four, got blocked by Spaniard Oscar Husillos and South African Zakithi Nene first and then by a wall of four. He did well to cut across and time 44.55 as the fourth fastest in the leg and hand the baton over to Amoj Jacob.
In the penultimate leg, which witnessed South African Antonie Matthys Nortje tripping early before recovering, Jacob pushed hard and went past his Spaniard and Italian rivals to take his team to the fourth position. He held it until Italian Alessandro Sibilio overtook the Indian in the last 50m. Jacob was the third fastest in his leg, clocking 45.03.
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Rajesh, who returned 45.21, threw a serious challenge at Edoardo Scotti at the final bend but could not go past the Italian as India finished fifth. Later, the disqualification of the Nigerian team promoted India to fourth place and made it a more frustrating finish for its runners.
India bettered its previous season best, 3:03.23 in the World Relays in Bahamas in May, but that was not good enough.
“There is no point in getting the season’s best. The target was to go to the top three. We (Ajmal) got stuck in the block. So, there was a speed variation,” said Jacob.
“When we reached the first hundred meters, I saw that if we go like this, we won’t be able to reach. I got a chance and went off. I went as far as I could. Then I thought that I should hold for a while. There was a curve, there was no point in running outside. As soon as I held back, the speed slowed down and my body got a little tight. Otherwise, I would have gone a little further in the final hundred.”
The Indian women’s team was eighth and last in its heat with a time of 3:32.51, way below its season best of 3:28.64.
USA (3:21.44), Great Britain (3:24.72) and France (3:24.73) qualified from the heat.
Jyothika Sri Dandi, running the second leg, was the fastest Indian with 51.30.
“We could not clock the timing we expected. We just concentrated on bettering our timing or maybe national record (3:26.89). The track is completely different and I felt like I was running but I couldn’t push. I expected to run here with sub-51 time, but I couldn’t make it. In training everything was fine. After coming on the track it went completely opposite,” said Jyothika.
The Indian campaign in athletics ended with the exit of the relay teams.
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