Indian Athletics Thread ...

[sameerph]

Impressive record by Lalita clipping more than 7 sec of her previous best. Hope she does even better in finals.

[sameerph]

In the womens 800M, Tintu Luka ran a season best of 2.00.95 sec. but could only finish 7th out of 8 runners in her heat. Top 3 in the each heat and 6 best among others were to reach SF. Tintu finished 7th best among the those who did not finish among top 3 in their heats and just missed out for SF by 1 spot. It seems she was leading till 600M and then fell away. These are the kind of tactics of front running which she always employs but do not seem to be working for her.

Sad to say but it seems she is not progressing much under Usha.

Only consolation is that with this timing she has qualified for Rio Olympics. But, then after all these years she should not be only satisfied with qualifying for the Olympics and must aim for at least making the final. For that she needs to go under 1.59 sec, which she has not done so far

[ankit1407]

If she still trains under Usha, time to move on.... Similar story for far too long now...

[shibi]

True about the training part. She has no strategy at all, except to run in front.

She got tripped at around 650m mark and lost time to recover her balance. Else, she would have gone to the next round.

[sameerph]

Thanks Shibi for those inputs. So, Tintu was a bit unfortunate but still even if she would have made it to the SF, there was not much chance for her to move to the final. Her personal best of 1.59.17 was achieved 4 years back and expected her to go much higher now.

This is a nice article on Tintu after she won her first international gold at the Asian championships at Wuhan in June.

Should India’s most consistent runner Tintu Luka train abroad?

[ankit1407]

Lalita Babar finished 8th in the final of the 3000M Steeplechase event with a timing of 9.29.64...A very good effort I would say on the big stage...

[shibi]

I liked the attitude of Lalita Babar, she is a gutsy competitor. She lead the field till 2000m mark and there were times when she lead the rest by about 40m. Though it was similar to Tintu Luka in leading the field, she is different as she isn't afraid to try out different things. Hope continues to improve.

Tintu would have qualified for the next round if she hadn't tripped, but she stood no chance in the SF. I feel she lacks sports intelligence.

Can't wait to watch Usain Bolt take on Justin Gatlin in 200 m tomorrow. I'm betting on Bolt though Gatlin should be the favourite.

[ankit1407]

Vikas Gowda qualified for the finals of the discuss throw in 7th position, his best throw was 63.86...The level of competition was way below par with just 2 guys touching the automatic qualification mark of 65 meter.

Final - 29 Aug...Good Luck

[arjun2761]

Hoping for a top-6 finish from Vikas. He has placed in the top-8 in the last 2 world championships, so hopefully he'll improve on that this year.

BTW, the IAAF does maintain a placing table which includes points those who finish in the top-8, and Lalita Babbar's impressive 8th place puts India on the list.

[Mugundan]

True about the training part. She has no strategy at all, except to run in front.

She got tripped at around 650m mark and lost time to recover her balance. Else, she would have gone to the next round.

Tintu was terribly unfortunate to have clipped the heel of the runner in front (it looked) to stumble, lose balance and lose momentum with 200-m to go. She looked poised to make the semifinal. In fact even after finishing seventh the commentators (one of them Steve Ovett, Olympic 800 champion in 1980) said Tintu should definitely make it to the next round as one of the fastest losers. It was too much to expect that four of the six fastest losers would come from heat 1 since five other heats were to follow and all of them knew what time was there to beat unless they were capable of finishing in the top three in a heat. To stumble and still clock 2:00.95 was amazing.
Tintu made it a little difficult for herself and the others by running an opening lap of 57.06s. Had it been 58 or 57.9 she might have stood a better chance. Of course that tripping just before getting into the bend on the back did the maximum damage.
How should Tintu be running an 800 has been debated for long. She obviously finds it difficult to hang behind and then speed up towards the last 200 metres as most of the runners do. I think Tintu and Usha know that there is a weakness in finishing and they have been working on it for the last few years.
Lalita Babar has been quoted in one of the reports after the final that her strategy was to build up as much lead as possible since she knew the others, especially the top athletes, had the speed to beat her over the last 600 or 800 metres in the 3000 steeplechase.
Tintu is also in somewhat of a similar situation. If she runs 59 seconds for the first lap and leads the others will comfortably beat her through the last 200 metres. At least most others. We can of course say she should go abroad train under a reputed coach and learn how to run a fast final 200. It may not work.
Talking of leading in the opening lap, world champion Eunice Sum did that yesterday in the semifinal and came third. She went through to the final as one of the two fastest losers! She should still be the favourite to win the title.

[arjun2761]

Not sure if anyone has better online video, but based on this partial video, it doesn't appear that the clip made a huge difference for Tintu as she was already in the process of being passed by the others (that is, she appears to clip someone passing her and not when she is gaining on them) and even after the very minor stumble she seemed to have the inside position but really kept losing ground all the way to the finish.

[shibi]

It did make a difference, but what do you mean by 'huge'? The difference between Tintu and the last qualifier was 0.25 S and I think she lost at least 0.5s in the process. She clearly lost pace. I agree she was tired and was being passed but she lost time and a place in the SF.

[sameerph]

Yes, she would have made the SF. As I said earlier she should now aim at achieving at least a final spot at these world level events if she is to fulfil the high hopes that we had on her after her early promise.

Small consolation is now she seems to be best in Asia in 800m. The same cannot be said now of our womems long relay team. Today, they posted a season best 3.39.86 but finished 14th out of the 16 teams competing out there and importantly behind Japan although ahead of China.

In mens 50KM walk, Sandeep Kumar finishes at 26th spot with 3:57:03 while Manish Singh at 27th spot 3:57:11. Both were season bests and also below Rio Olympics qualifying mark. So, 2 more quota places earned for Rio.

[shibi]

Just a small correction in the timing of Indian women relay team. They finished in 3:29:08, which is a fairly good timing by Asian standards.

[sameerph]

Yes, it was 3:29:08. Don't know from where I posted that earlier timing. This was a bit slower than 3.28.68 which they clocked last year while winning gold at Incheon Asian games. Japanese women posted their NR for 3:28.91 to finish ahead of India. Our girls need to get slightly better and post better timing than their Asian Games timing to finish among best 16 teams in the world and qualify for Rio. But, I am not sure where they will get the opportunity to do so.