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Mayookha ready to step into Anju’s shoes

Stan Rayan

KOCHI: The flight from Bangalore to Kochi had shaken her up.

“I think the pilot was new, the take-off and landing really scared me. He seemed to be turning here and there. And it never seemed to end,” said Anju George on Thursday, a little after landing here for the South Asian athletic championship which begins on Friday.

Anju’s days of a smooth ride in National long jump competitions could soon be a thing of the past too. There is a nice new jumper coming up, a young girl who promises to lead us through the golden path as Anju did, not so long ago.

Kerala’s Mayookha Johny looks a shy girl, not the sort who would push champions off the pedestal, but the 19-year-old from Kannur has already begun to nudge Anju.

“It’s nice to know that there are so many coming up now, apart from Mayookha, Prajusha looks promising too,” said Anju.

“We need some kind of pressure, we need to be pushed.”

The clash between Anju and Mayookha at the Maharaja’s Stadium on Friday evening could be the feature of the two-day South Asian Championship.

“I expect the gap between Anju and Mayookha to be just 10 centimetres here,” said Olympian Suresh Babu, the former Asian long jump champion. “She should do something close to 6.40m.”

Mayookha shook the athletics world from its season-opening slumber with a 6.32m gold-winning effort at the Federation Cup in Bhopal the other day.

It easily brushed aside the under-20 girls’ junior National record of Maharashtra’s Ruta Patkar’s 6.25m.

She also came up with a personal best of 13.34m while winning the triple jump.

But junior records no longer interest her. And though she came up with a “my God” when one asked whether she could be a threat to Anju in Kochi, Mayookha was clear that 6.40m was her goal in this Olympic year.

Olympic years do strange things to athletes. They find some hidden reserves to touch new highs.

Going all out

“I kept it deliberately slow last year but this being an Olympics year, I am going all out,” said Anju.

She opened her year with the Asian indoor meet silver in Doha with 6.38m but after this, the former World Championship medallist had been lying low, staying away from the last two National meets.

However, quietly, away from the spotlight, Anju has been slogging it out in Bangalore.

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