One last time

Ram Singh Yadav hopes to qualify for the 2012 London Olympics

MUMBAI: It takes a lion’s heart to comeback from scratch and compete with the best, within a few months time. Ram Singh Yadav almost quit running when he missed the Olympic qualification mark by a whisker after being the quickest Indian at the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon earlier this year. But the athlete has taken a u-turn, and decided to give his childhood dream one more shot.

“I was heartbroken when I learnt that I didn’t qualify. The organisers announced when the race got over that I had qualified. But I later came to know that I missed by 0.03 seconds,” Yadav said. “I couldn’t get over it, but then I thought I have one more chance. Age is on my side and I can put my best effort to qualify for London Games,” the 27-year-old army man added.

Yadav, along with veteran marathon runner Satyabhama D’Souza, will take part in the second leg of The Great Race on the Earth (GROE) at Singapore on December 7. But still there is reluctance of a sort, as he prepares for his first competitive race since January. “I wished to race in the Nairobi marathon which was a couple of weeks ago.

But I was never asked about that and was ordered to go to Singapore,” Yadav said.