KOCHI: Ask Muhammed Anas Yahiya what his first thoughts are after being part of the Indian men’s 4x400m relay team that re-wrote the Asian record, and the answer is a short one.
“It is a bittersweet feeling,” Anas told this daily from Tokyo on Friday.
Prod a little further and the quarter-miler wants to look on the bright side of what the team just achieved.
“We are happy and disappointed at the same time. We clocked such a good time but ended up missing out on a place in the final. But this performance will act as a big confidence booster for the tournaments that are set to follow,” he said.
The men’s relay team comprising Anas, Noah Nirmal Tom, Rajiv Arokia and Amoj Jacob produced an effort of 3:00:25s and narrowly missed out on a spot in the final as they finished fourth. The top three qualify for the final from the heats.
What makes their achievement remarkable is that the team did not participate in any international meets in about two years due to the Covid-19 in the lead up to the Tokyo Games.
They also only sealed qualification at the very last moment at the inter-state athletics championship organised in Patiala .
“It was very hard not to have competed in any international meets. There were no competitions and very few meets to compete. Maybe we could have bettered our timings even more if we came into the Olympics with more international meets under our belt,” he said.
Anas comes across as a calm and composed figure but the 26-year-old admitted that there were some nerves.
“We were directly competing in the Olympics without any international meets in a while. There was some tension and nervousness. But we managed to overcome it.”
In terms of their individual timings, Anas clocked 45.6s while Noah (45.0s), Arokia (44.84s) and Amoj (44.68s) also put in impressive shifts to break the previous record held by Qatar (3:00:56s).
“We are now a well settled unit. And our timings will improve further and only get better. We now have the Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games to look forward to. Coming into the Olympics, we had the belief that we could clock good timings and we just showed everyone that today,” he concluded.