The 24-year-old Rosy cleared 4.20m to go past VS Surekha’s earlier national mark of 4.15m set in 2014.
Pole vaulter Rosy Meena Paulraj may have set the national record on Saturday, but she wasn't even sure she would make it to the arena the day before. The Tamil Nadu vaulter, who beat Sureka Renjit's 8-year-old record by clearing the bar at 4.20m, missed her train from Chennai owing to a scheduling mix-up.
“I thought the train was at 10:30 but when I reached there it had already left,” she said after her triumph on Saturday at the IIT Gandhinagar facilities in Gujarat. Booking a train later that day wasn’t a viable option and Rosy almost gave up on her plans to reach Gujarat
She called up her father Paulraj, a music teacher in Thanjavur, to inform him about the missed train. “He didn’t yell or lose his temper. He just asked me if I would still like to go. And within minutes he borrowed money and arranged a flight ticket for me,” says Rosy.
Pavitha Vengatesh and Baranica Elangovan of Tamil Nadu finished second and third, with attempts of 4m and 3.90m, respectively.
When Rosy sat down with the medal around her neck after the award ceremony, she couldn't stop crying. Even though she began vaulting late in life, she had set a goal of breaking the national record. After experimenting with gymnastics and even javelin, the 25-year-old discovered her real passion in 2019.
“I was in the second year of my college and a young vaulter who had trained in Chennai came to our place. That is the first time I saw how the sport was done. I did not know that the pole could be bent and could generate enough energy to send a person into the air,” she says.
Most people thought it was a bad idea to start a new sport at the age of 23. When she initially met her current coach, Milber Bertrand Russell, he was skeptical since she is just 5 feet and 2 inches tall. When Rosy sets her mind to anything, she doesn't back down.
“I told her that her height wasn’t ideal for a pole vaulter but she didn’t think it would be a hindrance. She spoke to me for 10 mins and her willpower convinced me to take her in,” says Russell, a former fitness trainer.
Meanwhile, After a dismal performance at the World Championships earlier this year in Oregon, long jumper Jeswin Aldrin finished his season with an 8.26m leap, earning him automatic qualifying for the next World Championships. Jeswin just returned from a stay in Europe with JSW's Cuban coach Yoandri Betanzos.
"Earlier, I was under a lot of strain. The major goal of this training excursion was to calm me down. I had a lot of enjoyable activities and had time to recharge my batteries. But we never stopped training," Jeswin explains. Sreeshankar Murali (7.93m), who withdrew after his second jump due to a muscle complaint, finished second to the 20-year-old.
"Achieving the Worlds qualification mark early gives me a sense of relaxation. I don't have to think about it all the time now," says the teenager, who will return to Tamil Nadu for a brief but well-deserved vacation.
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