The Hindu : Sport : Babu Bhai walks to National record

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 25, 2007
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Sport

Sport

Babu Bhai walks to National record

S. Sabanayakan

Sameer Mon, Sharada Narayana emerge the fastest

Babu Bhai has qualified for the Beijing Olympics
Babu Bhai shifted to 20km walk just two years back

— Photo: Sushanta Patronobish

FASTEST MAN: SSCB’s Sameer Mon (second from right) finishes ahead of the field in the 100 metres sprint on Wednesday.

JAMSHEDPUR: From a remote village in Gujarat to Beijing Olympic Games is the success story of Babu Bhai of Services. This 29-year-old havildar of Indian Army heel-toed to the National record in the men’s 20 km walk on Wednesday morning at the JRD Tata Sports Complex here.

His flawless performance saw him time one hour 23 minutes and 40 seconds which not only bettered his previous best of 1:25:09 set at the Bhopal inter-State meet recently but also earned him a ticket to the next Olympics, the qualifying mark being 1:24.30s.

Uneventful

The second day of the four-day meet otherwise was uneventful barring that the two fastest athletes of the meet were identified.

Sameer Mon of Services took the men’s 100m clocking 10.53s to relegate Jagdish Basak to the silver place.

Sharada Narayana of Railways timed 11.83s to push the favourite Poonam Tomar to the second place.

Significantly, both Sameer, 24, and Sharada, 21, won their first National gold medals and registered their personal best timings.

The day’s hero undoubtedly was Babu Bhai. A failed cross country and marathon runner, Babu was asked to shift to walking just two years back.

Steady progress

Since then he has made steady progress. That he managed to improve his on mark within a short span speaks volumes about his ability to focus and work hard to achieve his target.

“My dream is to do well at the Olympics,” he said. “But I need to better my time drastically to stand any chance of winning a medal,” he said.

Sameer Mon, a regular gold medal winner with the Indian 4x100m relay quartet, came out of the shell for the first time. His last outing at the World Military Games at Hyderabad was a disaster, for he was disqualified for false starts.

The race began with a false start by the local lad, Ritesh Anand, and in the next, it looked Basak had the best start. As the runners approached the half-way mark, Basak was clearly in lead, though by slender margin.

Sameer was fourth at that point of time. He began to accelerate in the final 50m and pipped Basak to the tape in a smart finish.

Sharada was uncontrollable as soon as she finished the race to take gold.

“I have no words to describe my feeling now,” she gushed out.

“I have lost to Poonam so many times in the past four years. I still cannot believe that I have beaten her.”

Sharada was greatly helped by a poor start by Poonam who must have lost at least a stride or two. Poonam came into the race strongly but the early lead her teammate enjoyed was too much to make up.

It was a one-two-three for Railways in this race.

Shocking incident

In a shocking incident, the organisers allowed the women’s hammer throw event to go through with the safety netting sporting gaping holes.

In fact, during the competition the hammer slipped from a competitor’s grip and went through the netting narrowly missing an athlete standing near by. When pointed out an AFI official promised to change the net before the men’s event on Friday.

The men’s pole vault event was completed with lights mounted from the stands and medal favourite V.V. Geesh Kumar of Petroleum pulled out midway through the competition complaining his inability to see the bar.

The men’s and women’s 800m heats were also held in near darkness.

The Railways contingent continued to dominate the proceedings picking up medals in bunches with token resistance coming from Services.

The results: Men: 100m: 1. Sameer Mon (Ser) 10.53s, 2. Jagdish Basak (PSCB) 10.57, 3. Vilas Nilgund (Rly) 10.59; 400m: 1. Bibin Mathew (Rly) 47.55s, 2. S.K. Mortaja (Ser) 47.68, 3. Sriniwas Rao (Rly) 47.94; 110m hurdles: 1. P. Muthusami (Rly) 14.10s, 2. Naunidhi Singh (PSCB) 14.21, 3. Ranjit Randhawa (Jhar) 14.22; Pole vault: 1. Bimin K.P. (Rly) 4.80m, 2. R. Ranjith Kumar (TN) 4.70, 3. Gajanan Upadhyay (Rly) 4.70; Shot put: 1. Satyender Kumar (Rly) 18.05m, 2. Om Prakash (Har) 17.88, 3. P.B. Giri (Ser) 17.85; Javelin: 1. Anil Singh (Rly) 72.84m, 2. Kasinath (Ser) 72.29, 3. Arun Kumar Patel (Rly) 69.09.

20 km walk: 1. Babu Bhai (Ser) 1:23:40.0s (NR, previous 1:25:09 by Babu Bhai, Bhopal in 2007), 2. P.S. Jalan (Ser) 1:26:55.0s, 3. Harvinder Singh (Mah) 1:27:10.0.

Women: 100m: 1. Sharada Narayana (Rly) 11.83s, 2. Poonam Tomar (Rly) 12.03, 3. Nidhi (Rly) 12.03; 400m: 1. Satti Geetha (Rly) 54.71s, 2. Mandeep Kaur (ONGC) 55.33, 3. Tintu Luka (Ker) 55.76; 100m hurdles: 1. Poonam Bojanna (Kar) 14.08s, 2. Anuradha Biswal (Ori) 14.12, 3. G.G. Pramila (Rly) 14.46; Triple jump: 1. Kulwinder Kaur (PSCB) 12.84m, 2. Tessy Mol Joseph (Rly) 12.67, 3. Prajusha M.A. (Rly) 12.44; Javelin: 1. Mukesh Kumari (Rly) 45.96m, 2. Gurpreet Kaur (Har) 45.56, 3. Megha Pardeshi (Rly) 45.44; Hammer: Ritu Rani (Rly) 55.94m, 2. Archana Bara (PSCB) 54.69, 3. Phool Pati (PSCB) 50.55; Heptathlon: 1. J.J. Sobha (Rly) 5,508 points, 2. G.G. Pramila (Rly) 5,390, 3. Soma Biswas (Rly) 5,297.