Sport - Olympic Games

Poor show by Renjith Maheswary

BEIJING: At one time he was being projected as a possible medal contender in the Olympics. In the recent past he has been hailed as the ‘best talent’ that had emerged in Indian athletics after a long time.

Renjith Maheswary just could not have lived up to such expectations, for, he was way down his standards even at the end of last season, forget the current one.

After all the brave talk at home, Renjith finished 18th and last in his triple jump qualification group at the Bird’s Nest on Monday morning. His overall placing was 35th out of 39 contestants. Two of them did not have a mark against their names, thus making it an effective field of 37.

Renjith managed two legal jumps, 15.77m and 15.51. In between, he had a foul.

One could not have imagined that the 22-year-old Kerala jumper who had shown so much of promise with his 17.04 in the Asian Grand Prix at Guwahati last June, thus displacing one of the oldest National records from the books (Mohinder Singh Gill’s 16.79 of 1971), would end up with such a miserable show.

“He was very nervous,” said one of the Indian coaches. “Once he saw what the others were jumping, he got jittery,” he said.

All the top 12 who made it into the final bettered the automatic qualification mark of 17.10 metres. Britain’s Phillips Idowu, the favourite, headed the qualifiers’ list with 17.44. Behind him in Group ‘A’ was Nelson Evora of Portugal with 17.34. In the other group, where Renjith competed, Chinese Li Yanxi topped with 17.30.

Renjith had closed last season with 16.14 in the National Open at Jamshedpur, indicating a slump that the coaches could not explain. When he continued to show poor form this season, despite a training stint in the U.S., it was explained as an attempt to preserve his ‘peak’ for the Olympics. Renjith’s best this season happened to be 16.53 in the Asian Grand Prix at Bangkok, but he quickly showed a downward trend with 16.30 and 16.34 in the next two Asian GP meets.

Renjith can draw some consolation from the fact that Roman Valiyev of Kazakhstan, a 17-metre jumper, who won the silver at the last Asian Games, was also out of the final with just 16.20, while Chinese Gu Jinjie, another top jumper in Asia, was one rung above him at 15.94. Gu Junjie is also a 17-metre jumper.

Another Chinese, Zhong Minwei, who led the Asian lists last year (17.27) failed with a jump of 15.59 that put him 18th out of 19 athletes in his group.

Interestingly, for the first time since 1968 (excluding the 1980 Moscow Games because of the boycott), an American triple jumper failed to qualify for the final. Aarik Wilson (15.97), Rafeeq Curry (16.88) and Kenta Bell (16.55) were the U.S. entries. All the three had crossed 17 metres this season.

Observers here have pointed out the strictest dope control in the run-up to the Games, with WADA teams going into training centres of various teams in China and abroad, as one of the reasons for the poor performance of several top stars.

Anju George opens her Olympic campaign on Tuesday when she will figure in the qualification round.

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