T he roof of the Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New
Delhi almost caved in. Not because of the construction woes of the Commonwealth Games’ main venue, but the reason was the relentless cheering of the near-capacity crowd following India’s 4x400m women relay team’s heroic gold-medal winning effort.
Women were the big reason behind India’s impressive show across various disciplines this year but the four who stole the show were AC Ashwini, Manjeet Kaur, Mandeep Kaur and Sini Jose — the members of the relay team, who were voted as DNA’s team of 2010 by the readers. Their phenomenal performance at the CWG (3:27.77), a feat which they repeated at the Asian Games (3:29.02), remains the highlight of one of the most successful years for Indian athletics. “It is an honour to be voted as the best team. At the start of the year, our target was to do well in New Delhi. The gold medal there gave us the confidence to defend our title in the Asian Games. It has been a really good year for us. But we still have a lot of work to do,” said Manjeet.
While most of the CWG gold medallists did not live up to the expectations at the Asiad, the women’s relay team was an exception. Not only did they defend their title, they also did that in some style. “A big factor in our victory (at Asian Games) was that we resumed our training immediately after the Commonwealth Games, skipping all the felicitations. We are happy that the hard work paid off,” added Manjeet, who was also a part of the quartet that set the national record (3:26.89) at the Athens Olympics in 2004 along with Chitra Soman, Rajwinder Kaur and KM
Beenamol.
Ask them which one — Commonwealth Games or Asiad — of the victories is sweeter, and the reply is common. “The gold at the CWG, for sure. It was more satisfying because the level of the competition was much higher. After that everyone said that gold at the Asian Games is there for the taking. We did, however, not take any chances as Kazakhstan and China were good teams and we expected a tough fight,” pointed out Ashwini.
Manjeet considers the present team the best she has run with. “There is no senior or junior in the team. We train together and we spend time together. We gel very well and it is the team spirit that drives us to excel further,” said Manjeet.
To win a medal at the 2012 London Olympics will not be as ‘easy’ as it was in Delhi or at Guangzhou. But they don’t need to be reminded about the level of competition waiting for them in store.
“If all four of us can cut down ourindividual lap timing to sub 51 sec, which is very much achievable, we should be in the medal bracket in London Games,” said Ashwini.
