Date:13/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/13/stories/2008081361250300.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Athletes who almost made it

Avinash Nair

— Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.

Veteran athlete and former Olympian Kenneth Powel in Bangalore.

Bangalore: A long quest was finally over on Monday. Abhinav Bindra made every Indian proud with his Gold at Beijing. It was long coming for a billion plus Indians.

Hockey has produced eight golds in the Olympics besides a silver and two bronze thus far, but an individual gold just got difficult. Rajyavardhan Rathore won a silver, also in shooting, while Leander Paes (tennis — Atlanta 1996), Karnam Malleswari (weightlifting in Sydney 2000) and Khashaba Dadasaheb Jadhav in wrestling way back in 1952 at Helsinki — all won a bronze.

But there were a few near misses. And it came in athletics — P.T. Usha missing the bronze at the Los Angeles in the 400 m hurdles for women by 1/100th of a second and “Flying Sikh” Milkha Singh at Rome in 1964.

Kenneth Powell led the way back in 1964 with the likes of “glam girls” Ashwini Nachappa and Vandana Rao making it in 1980, while K. Rosakutty (1996 and 2000), Pramila Aiyappa (2000 and 2008), Vikas Gowda (2004, 2008) and M.R. Poovamma (2008) also attaining the qualification grade.

“It’s any sportsperson’s dream to be at the Olympics,” said Powell, now 68, but still fit as a fiddle. “Although I was running 100m in 10.6s at the pre-Olympic trials at Bangalore and 10.7s at Patiala, 200m was my pet event and I performed quite consistently at this distance in every meet. “But then our coach — Joseph Kovacs (a 1936 Berlin Games Olympian himself) — laid lots of stress on the relays. In the 100m, the first athletic event in the programme was held in ankle deep water logged cinder track and we could finish only sixth. But we did lot better in the relays and even created an Asian best of 40.5 seconds in the 4x100m relay beating Japan and Malaysia in the process,” recalled Mr. Powell.

Ashwini, whose athletic prowess and “good looks” carried her into silver screen admits: “The facilities and exposures too are much better these days than say about 20 years back. But a medal from the athletes are just not on… probably the shooters and boxers.”

Rosa Kutty was candid: “We first went into the gym at Atlanta and not having seen anything like that before did not know what to do. Saw some athletes using the facilities and did likewise,” said India’s middle distance ace, who won her first international medal, a bronze at the Beijing Asiad in 1990. Rosakutty was part of the relay foursome in 4x400m both at Atlanta and Sydney. While at Atlanta, it was Beenamol’s bungling by crossing lanes early, at Sydney “we did well… but not good enough at the international stage,” Rosakutty said.