Now it is up to the women to bring home a second medal for India.
Florian has written about the relay and here is a quote from The Times of India article today.
"The women's relay team made it to the final despite poor baton exchanges and a listless third leg run by Chitra, whose poor runs could have spoiled all the good work done by the first two runners - Rajwinder and Beenamol.
India, who were lying second when Beenamol gave Chitra the baton, were pushed back into the fifth spot by the time she, in turn, gave it to Manjit.
It was the scorching pace set by Manjit that eased India into the final as she outstripped a couple of rivals before anchoring India to third place behind winners USA and Greece."(http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/arti ... urpg-1.cms)
If the Indian women can pass the baton well, a couple of teams have poor baton exchanges, and the Indian girls can run like the wind tomorrow then ........
Actually, the 4X400m relay is probably the single event in which India has had most success internationally over the years. Luck (and better baton changing) will be required if we are to get a medal here, but I wonder if Chitra can be replaced. The rediff report corroborated the ToI one: http://in.rediff.com/sports/2004/aug/27oly-ath12.htm
So the brother-sister pair have had an excellent Olympics -- with KM Binu making the men's 400m semifinal, and KM Beenamol making the relay final.
Off the topic, but has anyone seen Amir Khan, not the actor but the 17 year old british boxer of Pakistani origin? He has been amazing so far and today won his semifinal bout to reach the gold medal match in his weight class. Apparently the British boxing federation wasn't going to have him try to qualify for Great Britain and he was going to try to fight for Pakistan but they changed their mind and now he is on the verge of a gold medal. I saw his semifinal bout and he dominated his older opponent with his great footwork.
Now Great Britain is trying its best to keep him in the amateur ranks until the 2008 Olympics. The British coach is not even letting him field phone calls except from his family members, mainly to keep the boxing promoters away from him. If Amir wins the gold in Athens, see him boxing professionally within the next two years.
This evening the American TV showed the 4x400m relay (tape delay).
I think that Rajwinder and Beenamol ran their legs very well and India was in second place when Chitra got the baton. Although she was overtaken by a couple of runners but Chitra was nearly pushed off the track by one runner as she came off the third turn into the final straightaway. She kept her poise and balance and stayed on track and handed the baton in fifth place to a very eager Manjit. What can I say about Manjit? She ran down the Greek gold medal winner of the 400m hurdles and overtook her for a while with less than 30m from the end and the Greek runner barely edged her out at the finish line. With her fantastic run in the last lap, Manjit got India into the finals. The relay is a team event and all four Indian girls made Indians proud today. The Indian relay team was amongst the last team to qualify for the Olympics, and the Indian women showed a lot of guts to reach the finals.
It is to be seen how much energy the Indian women spent today to qualify for the finals and how much gas they have left in the tank for tomorrow. Whatever the outcome they have earned the respect of the millions of people who watched them run today.
I hope somebody knows in how much time Manjit ran the last leg because it is perhaps the fastest any Indian women has run in the relays.
Thanks for those details, Bhushan. So it was unfair for anyone to blame Chitra, given that she had been pushed by a competitor, and actually did well in the circumstances (I wish the Indian press would be less sanctimonious in their coverage and pay more attention to these key nuances). Hopefully, the team will be up for another national record-type performance in the final (since they would have had a full day to recover from their tough semifinal). They have nothing to lose, and should run for their lives without feeling any pressure at all.
The girls ran a splendid relay, short of what they are capable of, theoretically, but adequate to get us a place in the final. (They ram far better than what I thought they would be capable of doing in Athens). Not for the first time in history, though. In 1984 Los Angeles Games, the team of Vandana Rao, Shiny Abraham, M. D. Valsamma and P. T. Usha made the final and eventually finished seventh. Admittedly our team was in the weaker of the two heats. But that wouldn’t have mattered eventually. Germany getting beaten by India in a 4x400m relay was historic.
Looking at how it went and how they ran individually, we have to take note of the fact that on the third leg, Ana Guevara ran for Mexico and she being who she is, was expected to make up at least some gap which she did. We have to see Chitra Soman against this background rather than go by how we slipped from third to fourth or fourth to fifth. Quite often we tend to look at it purely from the previous position without realizing that on a particular leg our runner might have run into the world No 1 or World No 2. We will also note what BS has said that she was pushed (part of the relay game, though) Chitra made the mistake of not seeing where exactly her team-mate was placed to receive the baton till the last moment and there also she (India) might have lost fractions.
Chitra is our weakest link, though this season she has the second best (51.30) individual timing behind Manjit Kaur (51.05) in the 400 metres. As for the question that PKB asked, whether she could be replaced, yes she could be, by anyone from the 4x400 team or anyone else in the entire Indian team if the reserves are unwell or are unavailable because of some reason. Theoretically, even Anju George can run the final of the 4x400m! But Chitra won’t be replaced unless she herself pulls out, for, the other girls (S. Geetha and Sagardeep Kaur) are at least one second behind her.
Manjit might have run the best among the four last night, but the splits are not available. Not yet.
As for the final tonight, they look poised to get the sixth place, but my own forecast will be seventh or eighth. My earlier forecast was eighth if they made the final and since they have made the final I should have stuck to it. The change of heart is only based on the way they ran last night.
PS: I will wait till well past the games to assess the true worth of this relay team!
The women's 4x400m relay splits for India (3:26.89NR):
Rajwinder Kaur 51.86
Beenamol 52.67
Chitra K. Soman 52.51
Manjit Kaur 49.85
Manjit was second best runner among all teams, behind American Monique Henderson (49.64) who ran their third leg.
Thanks mugu for putting that in place. I saw the relay on TV yesterday (but posting late due to bad internet options during my travel) .. Chitra did just fine and we did our job despite her being pushed and all that. By the way, I don't remember the rules on the way the players stand for baton exchange, but I thought there was disaster about to happen the way the baton was changed between Chitra and Manjit with the runners not being in line and with the runner to Chitra's left handing over to the player in her front and Chitra giving it to her right. Isn't the confusion avoidable with the receiving runner swapping positions or something? .. There was some melee about to happen but somehow nobody dropped the baton. I only saw it once, so I am not sure if this is how it went. Chitra was running on a lane two to the right of Manjit I think till just a few meters to go, I thought..
It was Chitra's responsibility to see where Manjit was positioned. She forgot, apparently, concentrating on her own race. Once the exchange zone officials place your positions (determing them as the runners break the penultimate bend), you are not supposed to move on your own. That will amount to a violation. So, Manjit had to be where she was; Chitra should have been watching and moving around slightly to get into an ideal position. I think, tonight they might put Beenamol on the third leg and Chitra at second.
Heard on TV a short while ago that Chitra had a toe injury and that was aggravated by someone spiking her last night. The federation secretary made this announcement on a news channel. He didn't say when that injury occured or whether Chitra will run tonight (strange the guy didn't ask him either). Quite possible we will one of the reserve runners tonight.
Thanks mugu for the split timings of the Indian runners. (Rajwinder Kaur 51.86 sec; Beenamol 52.67; Chitra K. Soman 52.51; Manjit Kaur 49.85).
I had read the reports in the on-line edition of the Indian newspapers before I saw the taped delay relay on US TV, and now I am even more convinced that some of the Indian sports reporters have no or little sports knowledge. mugu is giving us a lesson about the capabilities of the Indian sports officials and the sports reporters.
mugu has correctly written that in the relay events one has to look at the performance of the runners in comparison with whom they are running that leg. The Indian news media blamed Chitra for dropping from second to fourth place yet no one reported that she did not have the slowest time of the Indian runners and that she got bumped at about the 300m mark, even though the commentator on US TV spoke about it as it happened.
Manjit had the look on her face as she was waiting for the baton from Chitra that she was determined to show that she meant business and was not going to give up. I could tell that she went under 50 seconds and it turned out that she had the seconf fastes time of all the runners.
USA, Russia and Jamaica will bring in their big guns today for the finals and will leave the Indian women far behind but few expected the Indian relay team to beat Germany, Mexico, etc in the Olympics.
(Name; split 400m time (individual performance in the leg); cumulative time (rank of team after each leg)
1 USA
COX Crystal 51.82 (2)
ROBINSON Moushaumi 51.99 (1) 1:43.81 (1)
HENDERSON Monique 49.64 (1) 2:33.45 (1)
RICHARDS Sanya 50.34 (3) 3:23.79
