Indian Athletics Thread ...

[Sin Hombre]

Rupali won a bronze with a new PB of 51.85

I am in a way more optimistic about her than Hima.

She is tall (5.9) unlike Hima and comes from a small farming village near Meerut (and her father is a sugarcane farmer) and has hardly received much formal training. She got inspired after seeing PV Sindhu and Sakshi medal in 2016 when she was 12!

Bronze (and the CWG) will only mean she won't get hyped as much as Hima was, and the hunger will remain and hopefully she won't go the celebrity and fake/exaggerated news route of the 2018 u20 winner.

Hoping that she can break 51 before her 19th birthday and 50 before her 21st. That would be Olympic contender level progression.

[Sin Hombre]

Vivek Kumar in the javelin and Selva Prabhu in the triple jump also qualified for the finals in the u20 WC.

We are suddenly becoming a country of throwers and jumpers.

[sameerph]

Rupali won a bronze with a new PB of 51.85

I am in a way more optimistic about her than Hima.

She is tall (5.9) unlike Hima and comes from a small farming village near Meerut (and her father is a sugarcane farmer) and has hardly received much formal training. She got inspired after seeing PV Sindhu and Sakshi medal in 2016 when she was 12!

Bronze (and the CWG) will only mean she won't get hyped as much as Hima was, and the hunger will remain and hopefully she won't go the celebrity and fake/exaggerated news route of the 2018 u20 winner.

Hoping that she can break 51 before her 19th birthday and 50 before her 21st. That would be Olympic contender level progression.

Even this sub 52 or some improvement over it can give Rupal gold at next year's Asiad.

This is the video of her final run -

[jayakris]

^^^ Beautiful. She does seem to be the real thing.

[sameerph]

Selva Prabhu won silver in mens triple jump with a PB of 16.15M at world junior athletics championships.

Now, we have 2 silvers and 1 bronze there.

Vivek Kumar finished 4th in mens javelin with another PB. Nandini Agasara reached womens 100H final with a PB of 13.34 ( not far from Jyoti Yarraji 13.18 clocked yesterday at CWG) and our womens 4x 400 relay team lead by Rupal reached the final in overall 4th best time.

Such a string of good performances at this junior world championships. More than any other I remember.

[Sin Hombre]

Nandini Agasara did not qualify for the finals based on what I can see.

[sameerph]

She is in the final. She is in start list of the final here-

https://worldathletics.org/competitions ... /startlist

[Sin Hombre]

Clear - wiki had it wrong.

So she did run a new u20 NR then. Very impressive.

@Jay, there is a whole Indian athletics revolution happening in front of our eyes here.

[prasen9]

@Jay, there is a whole Indian athletics revolution happening in front of our eyes here.

As the middle class grows and the economy grows and the middle class grows, this is bound to happen. 1.4 crore people is a huge reservoir waiting to be unleashed.

[Sin Hombre]

Nandini ran a slower 13.46 in the finals and finished 7th. Women's 4x400 also ran slower in the finals to finish 8th and last (though matching their heats time would have only gotten them 6th)

[jayakris]

@Jay, there is a whole Indian athletics revolution happening in front of our eyes here.

I think you are right. I was expecting this kind of positive signs start coming out by 2010-2015, a good 20 years after economic liberalization, but it has taken 30 years. It may take another 10 years before we start becoming confident of a few medals at an Olympics in T&F.

[Sin Hombre]

@Jay, there is a whole Indian athletics revolution happening in front of our eyes here.

I think you are right. I was expecting this kind of positive signs start coming out by 2010-2015, a good 20 years after economic liberalization, but it has taken 30 years. It may take another 10 years before we start becoming confident of a few medals at an Olympics in T&F.

Needed some sporting idols to come through.

So many of these young athletes mention PV Sindhu and Sakshi Malik's medals in Rio, or Mary Kom in London for the female boxers or Yogeshwar and Sushil in wrestling in 2012.

I am fairly certain Neeraj's gold is inspiring a lot of 10-13 year olds to continue in sports.

[Sin Hombre]

8 athletics medals at the CWG - the only time we got more was the 12 in Delhi.

Barring, that we have gotten 2-3 in every CWG in the last 2 decades and got zero medals combined through the entirety of the 1980s and 1990s.

We are starting to close in on Nigeria in total athletics medals, we have come a long way. Need to start winning medals in some of these medium distances next.

[sameerph]

Yes, big improvement in athletics from last CWG. One more event left. Can we get a medal in mens javelin without Neeraj ?

[jayakris]

got zero medals combined through the entirety of the 1980s and 1990s.

You had to go and remind me of the dark ages... The two Asiads where only 2 people (PT Usha and Leander Paes) managed to get individual medals in ALL events put together. No Olympics medals for donkey's years... Usha missing a medal on a photo finish being the ONLY thing we had done in a real Olympics in 24 years between 1972 and 1996... The absolute disbelief when LP won a medal... In 1995, I was fully sure that I might never see an Olympics medal in my life time. Seriously. Athletics was the last thing where I expected gold medals (or even medals) in Olympics, Asiad, and even Commonwealth games. The dark ages, indeed.

We have come a long way. That is why I feel for places like Bangladesh... 8th largest population in the world, with 165M people. And they still don't have a medal of any color in this Commonwealth Games. We have been there, so we know.