Sport - Athletics

Snesarev suggests running in Europe

KOCHI: With the countdown for the Beijing Olympics well on, Indian runners have been frequently throwing anxious glances at the stopwatch the last few weeks.

The golds won at recent Asian meets sure look bright but not the timings returned by many of our athletes.

They key to fast timings is to send our athletes to Europe, says Dr. Nikolai Snesarev of Belarus, the coach for Indian distance runners.

“At least five or six athletes from this group can qualify for the Olympics if they are sent to Europe in May and June,” says Snesarev, who trains a 30-member gang. “All the best runners will be running in Europe around this time, so timings of our athletes will surely improve.”

To drive home his point, he adds, “Indians are good while competing against each other but not against the clock.”

Sinimol Paulose in the women’s 1,500m, Railways’ Sajeesh Joseph and R. Rajeev (both 800m), Ravinder Bharadwaj, and Chatholi Hamza (1,500) in the men’s section are some of the middle-distance runners who are in with a chance of making the grade.

“The timings of some of the athletes have improved… not by seconds but by minutes,” said Snesarev about the fruits of his three years’ toil in the country.

“The united efforts of all those who have to pay attention to athletics in the country will surely raise the standard.”

“Belarus is a small country, with about half of Delhi’s population, but we have won some 15 to 17 medals in Olympic Games. Even in the 2003 and 2005 World championships, out of 200 teams, we took the fifth place. That’s because though ice-hockey and football are very popular, the Belarus President pays a lot of attention to athletics,” said the 60-year-old.

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