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Priya and Alka, girls to watch
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While Priya chose the State's biggest stage for her feat, Alka's best came at quiet Palakkad, says STAN RAYAN.
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FUTURE STARS: A.P. Alka Chikil (left) and P.K. Priya: Photo by Mahesh Harilal.
OFF THE field, they are the best of friends. Even their dads, one a driver and the other a conductor with the KSRTC, are quite close. But when P. K. Priya and A. P. Alka Chikli come to the long jump pit for competitions, you notice a certain invisible wall building up between the two girls. The fiery duel between them chased away the oldest mark from the State Schools Athletic Meet's record books the other day in Kochi.
The two junior National stars from Kollam were in the news in recent State meets. While Priya broke P. Mallika's 26-year-old record long jump record, the oldest mark, at the Schools Meet, Alka emerged as the best athlete at the Junior State Championships in Palakkad early this week.
With 3,200 athletes in the fray, the Schools Meet is said to be Asia's biggest. And with parents, teachers and coaches in tow, the meet is often packed with drama. Happily for everybody, there's media frenzy too, with some of the local dailies bringing out special pull-outs and assigning seven-member teams to cover the event.
Under the circumstances, it's the best stage to get noticed in Kerala. And this is where the 16-year-old Priya beat Alka to the cake. Despite the uneven long jump runway and the strip's varying bounce troubling the jumpers, Priya was lucky to land a big one, a 5.75 m effort, which easily toppled the meet's oldest record and fetched her the senior girls sports division gold.
Priya is often beset with health or injury problems, says her coach Udaya Kumar of Kollam SAI. "I get very few days with her," he said.
Udaya Kumar now plans to change her `sail' technique and introduce Priya to the hitch-kick, a style in which the jumper appears to walk in air. American Bob Beamon, the former world record holder, made the hitch-kick famous.
Alka's splendid feat at the Palakkad State Juniors, which ended just a day before the Schools Meet, almost went unnoticed. Alka, who represented the country in the Youth Worlds in Canada last year, came up with a personal best of 12.59 m, a State record and also among the top three triple jumps in the national junior circuit this year.
She also has a best of 5.74 m in the long jump but after a few fouls could manage only 5.45 m at the Schools Meet, which, however, was good for the general division gold.
Coached by SAI's Victor Fernandes who has been deputed to the District Coaching Centre in Kollam, the tall and well-built 17-year-old has a clutch of medals in junior National meets.
We should be hearing a lot about them in the years to come.
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