Of redemption and desires coming true: Tales of India’s Olympic-bound relay groups

Indian males’s 4x400m relay crew pose for pictures after qualifying for Paris Olympics, on the World Athletics Relays, in Nassau, Bahamas, on Might 6, 2024
| Picture Credit score: PTI

Redemption, fulfilment of a father’s dream, an enormous step in a nascent profession and justification of decisions made early in life — Olympic qualification meant various things to the totally different members of the 4x400m Indian males’s and ladies’s relay groups who booked their Paris berths on Might 6.

PTI provides a low-down on the eight runners — 4 males and 4 girls — who completed second of their respective qualifying heats on the World Athletics Relay in Nassau, Bahamas to make the Olympic reduce.

The ladies’s crew

M.R. Poovamma: For Olympian Poovamma, it is a redemption of kinds after she confronted the ignominy of a two-year ban for a doping offence in 2021 earlier than getting a beneficial determination after the intervention of Kerala Excessive Courtroom.

The 33-year-old, a a number of medallist within the particular person 400m and 4x400m relay race within the 2014 and 2018 Asian Video games, returned to motion in the course of the Goa Nationwide Video games final yr after serving a two-year ban.

“Lastly, I can return to motion now. The ordeal is over, although it left me mentally distressed,” she had advised PTI then.

The Arjuna Awardee is without doubt one of the most embellished athletes within the nation, having received a girls’s 4x400m relay gold and 400m particular person silver within the 2013 Asian Championships.

She went on to win a gold and a bronze within the girls’s 4x400m relay and 400m particular person occasion. The Karanataka-born, who married one other worldwide athlete from Kerala, additionally received a gold every within the girls’s 4x400m and blended 4x400m relay races within the 2018 Asian Video games.

Rupal Chaudhary: She scripted historical past by turning into the primary Indian athlete to win two medals — silver in girls’s 4x400m relay and bronze within the particular person 400m — on the World U20 Athletics Championship in 2022 in Colombia.

The 19-year-old hails from a household of modest means. Her father is a small farmer in Shahpur Jainpur village in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut district.

Because the closest stadium to her base — Meerut — doesn’t have appropriate artificial tracks for coaching, she would endure a two-hour journey to Delhi for 2 days ever week to coach.

She grew to become the second Indian to win a medal within the girls’s 400m after Hima Das’ historic gold within the 2018 version of the championships in Finland.

Jyothika Dandi Sri: Hyderabad-based Jyothika, who ran the second leg on Monday, took to sports activities to fulfil the desires of her father who wished his daughter to function within the Olympics.

The 23-year-old is sort of near it, although the ultimate choice of the relay crew rests within the arms of the Athletics Federation of India.

She was a part of the Indian girls’s 4x400m crew that received a bronze within the Asian Championships final yr. She received a 400m gold within the Nationwide Open Championships in and a silver in Goa Nationwide Video games final yr.

Subha Venkatesan: The 24-year-old from Trichy in Tamil Nadu is the daughter of a development employee and a homemaker and she or he took to sports activities on the insistence of her maternal grandfather who works within the police division.

Educated initially on the Sports activities Growth Authority of Tamil Nadu’s (SDAT) Centre of Chennai, Subha went on to win medals in nationwide meets earlier than she grew to become a part of the ladies’s 4x400m relay crew that received a silver within the 2018 Asian Junior Championships.

The lads’s crew

Muhammed Anas: The 29-year-old Anas is probably the most well-known males’s quarter-miler within the nation and the nationwide document holder. Already a two-time Olympian, Anas has received medals on the Asian Video games, Asian Championships and 2016 he grew to become is barely the third Indian quarter-miler (particular person 400m) to take part on the Olympics after KM Binu and Milkha Singh. He was part of the Indian males’s 4x400m and blended 4x400m relays in Tokyo Olympics.

He was additionally a part of the lads’s 4x400m crew that broke the Asian document within the World Championships final yr and received the gold medal on the Asian Video games in Hangzhou.

Anas hails from Nilamel village in Kerala and his father Yahiya was a state-level athlete. Anas has typically said that he grew to become all in favour of operating after seeing Jamaican legend Usain Bolt dashing down the monitor within the 2008 Olympics.

He was an extended leap champion at his college, however shifted to trace on the recommendation of coaches.

On the 2016 senior nationals, Anas clinched the 400m silver in his first try and broke the 46-second barrier on the Indian Grand Prix and Federation Cups that yr for the primary time.

Muhammed Ajmal Variyathodi: Born in Palakkad, Kerala, Muhammed Ajmal was a soccer participant identical to many children in his state. He participated on the U-19 state degree soccer tournaments till his coach really helpful a shift to operating. He was a 100m sprinter first after which started competing in 400m.

Amoj Jacob: Born in Kerala however introduced up in New Delhi, Jacob’s sporting journey started throughout his time at St. Xavier’s Faculty in Rohini, when his coach advised that he attempt turning into a sprinter. The 25-year-old was initially all in favour of soccer. His mom is a nurse at a Delhi hospital.

He was a part of the gold profitable 4x400m relay crew on the 2017 Asian Championships in Bhubaneswar, apart from profitable the Hangzhou Asian Video games gold in the identical occasion.

Arokia Rajiv: Hailing from a village close to Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, athletics runs in Arokia’s blood as his father Y Soundararajan was a state degree sprinter and lengthy jumper. Arokia’s father Soundararajan was a bus driver whereas his mom a each day wager.

The 32-year-old Armyman was a part of the gold-winning 4x400m blended relay crew and he settled for a silver medal within the males’s 4x400m relay on the 2018 Asian Video games held in Jakarta. He was a part of the Tokyo Olympics 4x400m relay crew that broke the then Asian document.