INDIA HAVE FIELD DAY

Sable, Tajinderpal standouts as Indian athletes have productive day

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ON a slightly nippy night inside the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre, India's athletes, young and old, came together to script stories to last a lifetime. Avinash Sable, who has had a history with being tight in big finals, came up with a Games record in the 3000m steeplechase. Tajinderpal Singh Toor, who has spent more days mending his bones than hurling a shot put over the last few years, rebelled against his body to successfully defend the gold he had won in Jakarta in 2018.

Jyothi Yarraji, running next to China's Wu Yanni (Wu has been dubbed as the next athletic sensation by Chinese media) in Lane 5 in the women's 100m hurdles, stared at wrongful disqualification. Wu had jumped the gun by a clear margin and anything that happens after that is moot. Instead, the officials decided to DQ Yarraji too. Both of them ran under protest, with the former picking up silver and the latter winning bronze. In the end, justice was served as Wu was rightfully DQ'ed with Yarraji's medal being upgraded to silver.

But it must not have been a pleasant experience to go through the rigmarole in front of 50,000 people out for blood (Wu had suggested to the officials that the 24-year-old was the one to blame). On X (formerly Twitter), Tejaswin Shankar conveyed the emotions of a lot of athletics fans. "Doesn't matter if or all follow a false start. 1st person to jump the gun is the only person that gets ejected," the decathlete suggested. After the race, she admitted that the incident played on her and affected her.