Not many will believe that AC Ashwini was not a hurdler till six months ago.
Not many will believe that AC Ashwini was not a hurdler till six months ago. And on Thursday, she blazed to the women’s 400m gold at the Asian Games in the best timing by an Indian since PT Usha’s race at the 1984 Olympics at Los Angeles.
Apart from her hard work, the credit for Ashwini’s success goes to her coaches Bahadur Singh, Yuri Ogorodinik and R Nagapuri, who spotted the talent in her.
Ashwini, who clocked 56:15s to win the women’s 400m hurdles race on Thursday, is basically a quarter-miler. At last month’s Commonwealth Games she was India’s fastest runner in the gold medal-winning women’s 4x400m relay and ran a superb lap on Friday to help India’s women’s team repeat their success. But in the 400m hurdles at the CWG, she clocked a disappointing 59secs.
“India has been struggling to get a strong women’s hurdler since PT Usha. Ashwini had all the attributes. She was a strong 400m runner and, most importantly she has the height (175cm).We asked her to give the hurdles a try,” Bahadur Singh said.
Six months is too less for any athlete to settle into a new event, but Indian athletics had an example before them in none other than how Usha had started her hurdling career. When Usha ran the stunning 400m hurdles race at Los Angeles, missing the bronze by a whisker, she had trained for the event only for few months. “I had started training for the 400m hurdles the same year. I had some base in the sense that I used to do 60m hurdles in under-14,” PT Usha told DNA on Friday.
It proved to be a huge struggle for Ashwini to get her act together in the hurdles. “In CWG, I had poor timing. But after the Delhi Games, I decided to give it my all and worked with maniacal zeal. Luckily, I got my stepping right about 10 days before the start of the Asian Games when I settled into the rhythm of covering the distance between two hurdles in 15 steps.
“Everything seemed to be falling into place. It was when I got my stepping right in the heats that I gained confidence.”
Usha said that Ashwini’s success is good for India. “However, she will have to do much better to compete with the best at the world level.”
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