Long road to revival for men's relay team

Hindustan Times

28-04-2025

New Delhi: It was only a couple of seasons ago that the Indian men's 4x400m relay team made headlines with a blistering run at the 2023 Budapest World Athletics Championships. India set an Asian record (2:59.05) in the heats, running neck-and-neck with runners of powerhouse US, and finished a stunning fifth in the final (2:59.92). The team of Muhammed Anas Yahiya, Muhammed Ajmal, Amoj Jacob and Rajesh Ramesh extended their hot streak with gold at the Hangzhou Asian Games later that year.
The Paris Olympics last year didn't turn out to be a happy hunting ground. A season's best of 3:00.58secs wasn't good enough to qualify for the final. Japan got back their Asian record in the final (2:58.33secs).
The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) has since looked beyond the established quartet in search of fresh faces for the new Olympic cycle. At the World Athletics Relays in Guangzhou, China (May10-11) and at the upcoming Asian Championships in Gumi, South Korea (May 27-31), India will field a new and inexperienced side. Dharamveer Choudhary, Rince Joseph, Tushar Kanti, Jay Kumar, Mohit Kumar, TS Manu, Santhosh Kumar, Tamilarasan and TK Vishal are the members. Among them, only Santhosh Kumar was part of the Paris Olympics squad.
While revamp is a welcome sign, the results at the just-concluded National Federation Senior Athletics Championships in Kochi wasn't heartening. None of the male 400m runners could breach the Asian qualification mark of 45.36secs. TK Vishal came first clocking 46.19secs, followed by Jay Kumar (46.33secs). Amoj, who was part of the Asian Games winning quartet, also ran but looked woefully out of form and didn't finish in the final. He has been drafted into the world relay squad, but only in the mixed squad.
After such performances, AFI couldn't select anyone in the individual 400m for the Asian Championships.
'The relay team is being sent for both meets but it's a long way to go. The timings need to improve. There are some fresh faces and it might take some time to rebuild the team,' said an official.
The world relays is the qualifying event for the world championships in September and it will be quite a task for the Indian team to secure a place for Tokyo (16 teams will qualify).
Earlier this year, AFI was taken by surprise when some of the members from the established squad refused to train with the Jamaican coach Jason Dawson, under whom the team had taken impressive strides. AFI refused to budge and placed its faith on Dawson. The relay camp has been going on at the National Centre of Excellence, Thiruvananthapuram. The federation announced that only campers would be picked in the relay teams for international meets.
'There were some (athletes) who didn't want to train with the foreign coach because they felt the training was too harsh,' AFI spokesperson Adille Sumariwalla had said. 'Unless you do hard training, there is no way you can win medals at the Olympics. You have to run three races at the Olympics. We are very clear that those who want to join the camp are welcome. Others won't be part of relay teams,' he had said.