Indian males’s 4x400m relay crew pose for images after qualifying for Paris Olympics, on the World Athletics Relays, in Nassau, Bahamas, on May 6, 2024
| Photo Credit: PTI
Redemption, fulfilment of a father’s dream, an enormous step in a nascent profession and justification of selections made early in life — Olympic qualification meant various things to the completely different members of the 4x400m Indian males’s and girls’s relay teams who booked their Paris berths on May 6.
Indian girls’s 4x400m relay crew members pose for images after qualifying for Paris Olympics on the World Athletics Relays, in Nassau, Bahamas on May 6, 2024.
| Photo Credit:
PTI
PTI offers a low-down on the eight runners — 4 males and 4 girls — who completed second of their respective qualifying heats on the World Athletics Relay in Nassau, Bahamas to make the Olympic minimize.
The girls’s crew
M.R. Poovamma: For Olympian Poovamma, it is a redemption of kinds after she confronted the ignominy of a two-year ban for a doping offence in 2021 earlier than getting a beneficial determination after the intervention of Kerala High Court.
M.R. Poovamma
| Photo Credit:
The Hindu
The 33-year-old, a a number of medallist within the particular person 400m and 4x400m relay race within the 2014 and 2018 Asian Games, returned to motion throughout the Goa National Games final yr after serving a two-year ban.
“Finally, I can return to action now. The ordeal is over, though it left me mentally distressed,” she had informed PTI then.
The Arjuna Awardee is one of essentially the most embellished athletes within the nation, having received a girls’s 4x400m relay gold and 400m particular person silver within the 2013 Asian Championships.
She went on to win a gold and a bronze within the girls’s 4x400m relay and 400m particular person occasion. The Karanataka-born, who married one other worldwide athlete from Kerala, additionally received a gold every within the girls’s 4x400m and combined 4x400m relay races within the 2018 Asian Games.
Rupal Chaudhary: She scripted historical past by turning into the primary Indian athlete to win two medals — silver in girls’s 4x400m relay and bronze within the particular person 400m — on the World U20 Athletics Championship in 2022 in Colombia.
Rupal Chaudhary
The 19-year-old hails from a household of modest means. Her father is a small farmer in Shahpur Jainpur village in Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut district.
As the closest stadium to her base — Meerut — doesn’t have appropriate artificial tracks for coaching, she would endure a two-hour journey to Delhi for 2 days ever week to coach.
She grew to become the second Indian to win a medal within the girls’s 400m after Hima Das’ historic gold within the 2018 version of the championships in Finland.
Jyothika Dandi Sri: Hyderabad-based Jyothika, who ran the second leg on Monday, took to sports activities to fulfil the dreams of her father who needed his daughter to function within the Olympics.
The 23-year-old is sort of near it, although the ultimate choice of the relay crew rests within the palms of the Athletics Federation of India.
She was half of the Indian girls’s 4x400m crew that received a bronze within the Asian Championships final yr. She received a 400m gold within the National Open Championships in and a silver in Goa National Games final yr.
Subha Venkatesan: The 24-year-old from Trichy in Tamil Nadu is the daughter of a development employee and a homemaker and she took to sports activities on the insistence of her maternal grandfather who works within the police division.
Subha Venkatesan
| Photo Credit:
The Hindu
Trained initially on the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu’s (SDAT) Centre of Chennai, Subha went on to win medals in nationwide meets earlier than she grew to become half of the ladies’s 4x400m relay crew that received a silver within the 2018 Asian Junior Championships.
The males’s crew
Muhammed Anas: The 29-year-old Anas is essentially the most well-known males’s quarter-miler within the nation and the nationwide report holder. Already a two-time Olympian, Anas has received medals on the Asian Games, Asian Championships and 2016 he grew to become is just the third Indian quarter-miler (particular person 400m) to take part on the Olympics after KM Binu and Milkha Singh. He was a component of the Indian males’s 4x400m and combined 4x400m relays in Tokyo Olympics.
Muhammed Anas
| Photo Credit:
The Hindu
He was additionally half of the lads’s 4x400m crew that broke the Asian report within the World Championships final yr and received the gold medal on the Asian Games in Hangzhou.
Anas hails from Nilamel village in Kerala and his father Yahiya was a state-level athlete. Anas has typically acknowledged that he grew to become fascinated about working after seeing Jamaican legend Usain Bolt dashing down the observe within the 2008 Olympics.
He was a protracted bounce champion at his college, however shifted to trace on the recommendation of coaches.
At the 2016 senior nationals, Anas clinched the 400m silver in his first try and broke the 46-second barrier on the Indian Grand Prix and Federation Cups that yr for the primary time.
Muhammed Ajmal Variyathodi: Born in Palakkad, Kerala, Muhammed Ajmal was a soccer participant similar to many kids in his state. He participated on the U-19 state degree soccer tournaments till his coach really useful a shift to working. He was a 100m sprinter first and then started competing in 400m.
Amoj Jacob palms the baton to Muhammed Ajmal Variyathodi .
| Photo Credit:
Getty Images
Amoj Jacob: Born in Kerala however introduced up in New Delhi, Jacob’s sporting journey started throughout his time at St. Xavier’s School in Rohini, when his coach instructed that he attempt turning into a sprinter. The 25-year-old was initially fascinated about soccer. His mom is a nurse at a Delhi hospital.
Amoj Jacob
| Photo Credit:
The Hindu
He was half of the gold successful 4x400m relay crew on the 2017 Asian Championships in Bhubaneswar, moreover successful the Hangzhou Asian Games gold in the identical occasion.
Arokia Rajiv: Hailing from a village close to Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu, athletics runs in Arokia’s blood as his father Y Soundararajan was a state degree sprinter and lengthy jumper. Arokia’s father Soundararajan was a bus driver whereas his mom a each day wager.
Arokia Rajiv.
| Photo Credit:
The Hindu
The 32-year-old Armyman was half of the gold-winning 4x400m combined relay crew and he settled for a silver medal within the males’s 4x400m relay on the 2018 Asian Games held in Jakarta. He was half of the Tokyo Olympics 4x400m relay crew that broke the then Asian report.
