KOCHI: Till last month, India’s ace middle-distance runner Jinson Johnson was in a race against time. The Tokyo Olympics — which was originally slated to be held from July-end — had not yet been postponed to 2021 and the Asian Games gold medallist still hadn’t secured his qualification.
He had suffered an Achilles tendon injury back in November when he was training at a high altitude training base in Colorado Springs, USA. By March, Jinson was ready to make his comeback to the track in a bid to secure qualification. It was going to be like a tightrope walk for the national record holder.
On one hand, he had to make sure that he had fully recovered from a serious injury, and on the other, he had a relatively small window to prove it and make the cut. However, there was no trial by fire for Johnson and the subsequent postponement of the Tokyo Olympics due to the coronavirus outbreak has come as a blessing in disguise for him even though he doesn’t want to see it that way.
“The postponement of the Olympics happened because of the virus. So I can never say that it was a good thing. I had planned my return from injury keeping in mind a July Olympics. I wouldn’t have had a problem with that,” said Jinson but added his main worry then was the cancellation of the qualifying tournaments because of the virus.
The 800m and 1500m runner, however, admitted that he did rush his return from injury keeping in mind the Olympics. “Earlier, the qualification was going to end in June. So I tried to rush through my rehab a little. It was a situation where I had to have enough rehab time and have enough track time. There was a worry that I wouldn’t get enough rehab time but I had no choice,” said Jinson.
Currently at the SAI centre in Bengaluru, the Kerala athlete can fully focus on his fitness and recovery without any pressure.During the lockdown, his training has been mainly restricted to basic fitness maintenance but he is eager to get back on the track.
“We don’t know about when competitions are going to start again. For that everything has to get under control first. Things have to get back to normal. For me, I have got some time to prepare before the next set of rounds start,” he said.