CHENNAI: Predictions are always laced with danger. And in an athletic season disrupted by Covid lockdown leading to breaks, it is perilous. With lack of competitions playing havoc in the mind of athletes, creating national records would have been the least of the expectations when the events rolled out in the warm evening. The Indian Grand Prix 4 in Patiala on Monday is indeed a case in point.
National record (NR) for Kamalpreet Kaur in the women’s discus (but won’t be counted), Dutee Chand sailed like the wind in the 100m for an NR, the women’s 4x100m inched closer to the qualification standard with an NR and Tajinder Pal Singh Toor’s herculean effort (literally) in shot put will put him on a flight to Tokyo.
Tajinder’s last national record stood at 20.92m created in October 2019. Since then he had been harbouring hopes of crossing the elusive 21m mark and breaching the Olympic qualification mark of 21.10m. Well, his NR, 21.49m, is humungous. Even for him, it was but nothing ‘unexpected’. “I have been consistently crossing 21m mark in training and was hoping for throwing somewhere near that mark,” he said after the throw. With this throw he is now ranked 15 on the Road to Tokyo list behind Jacko Gill of New Zealand.
To put this throw in perspective, Rio Olympic gold medallist Ryan Crouser of the US has thrown 23.37m in June, and it remains the season’s best. His compatriot and silver medallist at Rio, Joe Kovacs, has 22.72m against his name this May. Rio bronze medallist, Kiwi Tomas Walsh, has a best of 22m in June this season.Yet, for Tajinder, it was a day of relief. “I had been concentrating on qualifying to the Olympics through qualifying standard and not through ranking and we have been training for that,” he said. “Now we can focus on the Olympics.”
The 26-year-old’s coach too is satisfied and was not surprised by the distance. He in fact said his ward had been consistently throwing above 21.30m and he was expected somewhere between 21.30-21.60m. In the 100m dash, though there was no Hima Das, but Odisha’s Dutee was fast off the blocks and thwarted the challenge of A Dhanalaxmi of Karnataka to clock 11.17s. However, she was .02s adrift of the Olympic qualification mark of 11.15s. The inter-state nationals from June 25-29 will give her another opportunity to take a crack at the mark. Right now she is ranked 42 on the Road to Tokyo list.
In the 4x100m, the quartet of Dutee, Hima, S Dhanalakshmi and Archana Suseendran bettered the previous national record with a timing of 43.37s but way off the top 16, who qualify for the Olympics. With this timing they would be placed at 20 behind Kazakhstan with a timing of 43.36s. The last-placed team on the list of 16 is Nigeria with 43.05s.