National Athletics 2011: Review and Analysis Part 1

India’s annual National Athletics event , the Inter State 2011 Championships, were recently held in Kolkata from 10 – 13 September. With the memories fresh from the annual World Athletics Championships , that were held in Daegu at the end of August, it was time for India’s best to compete against each other. One good thing about the Senior National Championships is that , the event was held in September which is in sync with the International Calendar.

( Above chart depicts India’s NRs followed by the National Championships held in 2010 , then the marks set by Indian Athletes in Kolkata and lastly the International timings and distances set during the Worlds at Daegu )

Kolkata ’11 Highlights

Haryana’s Manish won his maiden National 100m title and stole the limelight from the star studded field comprising of B.G.Nagraj , Krishnakumar Rane , Abdul Qureshi and Rahamatulla Maulla. In the 800m run , the legendary SriRam Singh’s 25 year old record was still a good five seconds away from Sajesh Joseph who eventually finished with another gold in the 1500m. The outstanding performer of the Championships was Mumbai‘s Siddhant Thingaliya who ran for the 110m hurdles for ONGC and bettered his own National Record by 0.04s to set a mark at 13.77s ! Former National Champion Joseph Abraham failed to even cross the heats in the 400m hurdles event which was won by Railway’s Satendra Singh. Triple Jumper Ranjit Maheshwari who had a wonderful season 2010 , could not jump 16m and failed to get a medal , the yellow metal was won by Arpinder Singh who dramatically jumped 16.63m in the last attempt. Usual suspects OmPrakash Singh and Saurabh Vij came one-two respectively in the shot put event.

Where do we stand ?

Clearly from the charts, a comparison with the International scene throws a bleak picture of our Nationals . On a realistic note , apart from the THROW events , Indian men do not stand a chance even to qualify for the Finals , leave apart winning medals. Even in SHOT PUT event, our duo of Om Prakash and Saurabh Vij can throw over 20m rarely and there are some fourty three odd athletes in the World today who do it on a regular basis. So we have to DISCUS with Vikas Gowda for a National Record breaking performance which can then put him on the medal winning position in International Events !

Hoping for a better future...

As things stand , apart from Discuss Throw , the 110m hurdles is the only event where we might have some success in the near future. With Siddhant Thingaliya improving year on year, we could have a Xiang Lui in the making . But that’s really far fetched. As the 20 year old lad enters the senior World circuit , his current timing of 13.77s places him at Rank 130 . An improvement of hundredth of a second moves him into the top 100. Once he manages to break the 13.50s barrier he ll enter into the top 50. Recording a time of less than 13.00 seconds is what guarantees you a medal at the Olympics ! Its a long journey but worth chasing for Siddhant and if ever achieved , surely a mesmerizing one for the fans of Indian Athletics !

…Part 2 : We Review and Analyze the Women’s performance in the National Championships 2011