NAGOYA: The last seven days were stories of near misses. Sometimes gold turned into silver and into bronze too. And there were times when there was no medal against their effort on track at the Paloma Mizuho Sports Park. On the last day of the athletics competition, four women had other ideas. They tilted the storyline and gave India their second gold of the day after shooting. When Kiran Pahal, MR Poovamma, Prachi Chaudhary and Vithya Ramraj were herded into the box next to the rain-soaked tracks, the only question was whether the team would change the colour of the metal from previous edition. Just to put India’s dominance in women’s 4x400m relay: India won seven of the last eight finals in this competition. India clocked 3:29.69 while Bahrain were second with a timing of 3:30.21 followed by China (3:31.02). With this gold, Vithya completed the set of winning all three medals in this edition of Asian Games. (Gold in women’s relay, silver in mixed relay, bronze in 400m hurdles). What makes the effort even more remarkable is the way they fought all adversities to come to this stage, right from childhood and when they stood on the podium with the national anthem playing in the background from as diverse a state as Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. They may not understand their languages sometimes but they speak of one common goal — gold.
The 4x400m relay team was in disarray after a bunch of athletes were banned due to doping. The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) have been trying different combinations but were not working until they found the four. Their focus was Asian Games. And with that in mind, they appointed renowned Jamaican coach Jerry Lee Holness for the 400m team. The turnaround started last year. But it was gradual. For the Asian Games, AFI had to assemble the four best runners over the quarter mile – all coming from different backgrounds, different regions too, battling odds in life and beyond but bound by one ambition – winning medals for the country.
Kiran Pahal has her own story to narrate. When she was a kid, people in her village did not want her to run. Her father used to fight with them. She loved running and her mother supported her wholeheartedly. Things started changing after she started to win medals for the country. The same villagers who were against her when she was young, called her up on Monday to wish her luck.
Poovamma endured some of the most trying times when she was banned for doping and returned from it. It’s been close to 15 years since she has been running as an elite athlete. She has won six medals in Asian Games – four gold, one silver and a bronze. For the 36-year-old, age is just a number. She is still winning medals for India and that keeps her going. There was a time when she had to train alone after coach Galina Bukharina left. When she tested positive for a banned substance and was banned, her husband and former hurdler Jithin Paul supported her throughout. He never let Poovamma miss any training. She was in tears narrating those trying times. She made a comeback for the Olympics in 2024. “This was revenge,” she said in the mixed zone, her voice quivering with emotion. “With the Asian Games gold medal and silver medal, I am very proud of myself.”One person she cannot forget is her husband Paul. “He has always motivated me and tells me my age should not matter,” she said. “He has told others that they should be inspired by my performance. Hopefully, this should be an inspiration for the youngsters who are not able to perform at a certain age. It’s not age but only hard work and experience of what we go through. ”Poovamma still gets goosebumps narrating her banned period. “I was depressed and went through hell,” she said. “It was my family and my husband who supported me. After marriage, girls usually think about dropping sports. But my husband was the one who, when I was not in the camp, got the programme from coach Galina (former 400m coach from Russia). He looked after the programme. He used to go to the office, cook for me so that I would not be tired. Additionally, he also does my morning training session at around 10 am. He used to leave the office after taking permission from the commissioner. He used to come to the ground at 3 o'clock, go back again and come back to prepare dinner for me. He has not allowed me to cook these four years.”
If Poovamma had stormed the worst moment of her career, Kiran had to endure different sorts of hardship. She belongs to a village in Haryana where girls are not allowed to train or play sports.“In the village (Gumbad in Sonepat district), playing was not accepted; girls should not play games,” she said. “But my father fought the whole village and brought me out.I have been raised like a boy. And in my house, I am the youngest. That's why I am the only one in the house to have a job. So everything in my family belongs to me. After securing this gold, I feel a big burden will be off me.”
The men’s 4x400m ran but finished with a bronze behind Japan and Qatar with a time of 3:01.61. Long distance runner Gulveer Singh completed his hat-trick of Asian Games medals with a bronze in the 5000m finals. An extraordinary effort considering he ran four races including the 1500m heats in five days. He won silver in both his previous events – 10000m and 1500m.
Relief for Sreeshankar
A day after limping off the jump pits, silver medal winner and long jumper M Sreeshankar’s ankle seems to be fine after evaluation. Teenager Pooja Singh, who is making her Asiad debut, managed to win a bronze with a mark of 1.84m in women's high jump final. Meanwhile, Dev Meena produced a national-record breaking effort of 5.50m in the men’s pole vault final but could not finish in the top three. He finished seventh. With athletics having 24 medals (one gold, nine silver and 14 bronze) in this edition, which is five less than they managed in 2023 in Hangzhou (29), a lot will be discussed on medal prospects pulling out of competitions. But the AFI will be happy with few personal-bests and new national records. Over to the Olympics.