KOCHI: “Two to three oatcakes, 150gm of cottage cheese, a handful of mixed nuts and seeds, fruits and green tea.” That’s the ideal mid-morning diet for a middle-distance runner, as per sports dieticians.
Remember, this is just for a mid-morning bite. A sort of filler between breakfast and lunch. When told about this, PU Chitra, the Asian 1500m champion who is going to represent India in the World Championship in London, she was left aghast. She hadn’t heard of or had such a diet in her life.
“I ate what my family cooked. What my parents ate. Once in a while, they bought me dry fruits. I was reluctant to ask them to buy them regularly. I didn’t want to add to their burden,” the 22-year-old says. Chitra’s parents are agriculture labourers in Mundur, an obscure village in Palakkad, whose earnings are barely enough to make ends meet.
It was on July 7 that Chitra won the Asian title in Bhubaneswar. Newspapers next day celebrated the win of a lean, diminutive athlete, while pundits debated whether her win was the result of a field left depleted after some top athletes decided to stay away. For them, the fractions and decimals mattered more. Few thoughts were spared to fathom the difficulties a girl from a nondescript village had to endure to reach this level.
It went unnoticed that the protagonist of their discussion had finished the race in borrowed spikes. Chitra had to literally step into the shoes of another Kerala athlete, KK Vidhya, after her own battered, time worn spikes refused help her out. “I had a Nike spike shoe that I used for more than two years. When it could no longer be used in competitions, I borrowed from my friend,” Chitra said.
To be an athlete in India is a tough ask because sport doesn’t offer much. It’s easy to fall through the cracks in the system, and even if one could wriggle out of that, official apathy that follows could easily dampen the spirit of the athletes.
Chitra’s efforts to buy proper, quality shoes before the Asian Championship went in vain because of her precarious financial condition. The Kerala government still owes her to the tune of `3 lakh announced for her performances in the national school meets from 2011-13.
After the Asian Championship, the Odisha government gave Chitra Rs 10 lakh. Now she has the money. But since she had to compete in the inter-state championship in Guntur soon after, she couldn’t buy spikes. “If I can’t buy it in India, I will buy it in London,” she said from her new training base in Coonoor.
Till then, she will continue training in her friend’s old spikes. That’s the way one of India’s elite athletes is preparing to take on the best in the world. All the best!
shan.as@newindianexpress.com