Children in rural India have a habit of running for things that a reader going through this article on his computer or mobile phone may take for granted – water, groceries, school. As a result, these children tend to be fitter and more athletic than their counterparts in concrete urban jungles playing Pokemon Go.
So why is it that talent from the hinterlands of India is lost when it comes to selecting competitors for track and field events? Is it a question of negligence, a lack of information or a sheer lack of apathy from athletics bodies in India? Perhaps, it is a combination of the three.
Guts and glory
This year, there is a common thread that runs through the majority of the athletics contingent that is going to represent India at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in less than three weeks’ time – their ability to survive hardship and come up trumps. Most of these athletes are already winners because of the gladiatorial will that they have shown just in making it to the global stage.
The 38-strong contingent is almost three times larger than the one that went to London in 2012, 14, and is India’s largest ever for the Olympic stage. The poster girl for this renaissance is none other than the 20-year-old 100-metre sprinter born to a poor weaver couple in Gopalpur, Odisha – Dutee Chand.
Her comeback story is already one for the ages. As an 18-year-old in 2014, she was banned and dropped from the Commonwealth Games for hyperandrogenism – a condition where a woman athlete has a higher limit of testosterone than permissible.
But Dutee didn’t give up, she came roaring back. After having the verdict quashed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in July 2015, she lost 18 months of training but clocked 11.24 seconds at a recent meet in Almaty, Kazakhstan, to win silver. She also broke the national record for the third time, after setting previous records of 11.33 and 11.30 seconds. Prior to that, the record had stood for 16 years.
Earlier this month, the president of the Athletics Federation of India, Adille Sumariwalla, had claimed "inconsistencies" in Nirmala Sheoran’s heroic qualification for the 400-metre event at Rio, after she had clocked 51.48 seconds, shattering her personal best of 52.35. Although Sumariwalla himself had told the media that Sheoran had been tested, he could not find any conclusive proof for any of these "concerns".
In fact, an electronic timing failure at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in April had seen three National Records and the potential Olympic qualification of 100-metre men’s sprinter Amiya Mallick go down the drain. In a farcical end to that day, the men’s and women’s 3000-metre events had to be conducted in complete darkness.
From the hinterland
One of those national records would have belonged to 400-metre sprinter Muhammad Anas, who will also represent the country in the 4x400-metre men’s relay. The village boy from Nilamel in Kerala lost his father when he was in the 10th standard and did not have proper shoes when he decided to take up running in 2012. Anas became only the third man to qualify for the 400-metre event after Milkha Singh and KM Banu. Incidentally, the men’s and the women’s relay team might be India’s best shot at an athletics medal in Rio.
Perhaps the most heart-warming tale belongs to 20 km walker Khushbir Kaur, who walked the entire race barefoot at the 2008 Junior Nationals. Seven years later, she became the first Indian woman to win a race walking medal at the Asian Games.
Or is it that of OP Jaisha, who ate mud to survive because she could not starve anymore? Now, the 32-year-old from Thrissilery in the Wayanad district of Kerala will represent India in the 42 km marathon. At the Mumbai Marathon in January, Jaisha broke a 19-year-old Indian record with a time of 2:37.29. She shaved a further three minutes off the record at the Beijing World Championships.
Among the male runners, 200-metre sprinter Dharambir Singh, a Life Insurance Corporation of India agent by profession, had to crowd-fund Rs 4.5 lakh from his village of Ajaib for his training expenses. Growing up, Singh ran on dirt tracks on the outskirts of his village for practice. In qualifying for Rio, Dharambir had clocked 20.45 seconds, becoming the first Indian man in 36 years to qualify for the 200-metre event.
In December 2011, seven Indian athletes were handed bans for failing dope tests. Among them was runner Ashwini Akkunji, who will be part of the 4X400 metre relay team. Ashwini will be looking to redeem herself with the Indian team that has won the relay gold at the last four Asian Games.
The veterans
Noticeably, there are quite a few veterans in this team of upstarts. While discus thrower Vikas Gowda is a doubt because of fitness issues, he is due to participate in his fourth Olympics and became the second Indian man to win an athletics gold at the Commonwealth Games in 2014, 56 years after Milkha Singh won the men’s 440 yards in Cardiff in 1958.
Triple jumper and national record holder Renjith Maheshwary will also be participating in his third Olympics after jumping 17.30 metres at the Fourth Indian Grand Prix. He will be joined by fellow three-time Olympian Seema Punia Antil, who is the reigning gold medallist in the discus throw event at the Asian Games.
This group of 38, representing the country across 21 individual events may struggle to win a medal in Rio, coming up against heavyweights from Jamaica, the United States and Europe. But their mere presence in Rio will be cause for optimism for aspiring athletes in a country where the discipline has been shunned and neglected for a long time despite the presence of greats such as Milkha Singh and PT Usha. Like Dutee’s timings, the state of Indian athletics has limitless potential and keeps improving.