Nirmala surfaces, wins gold

Guwahati, June 28 

Haryana’s quarter-miler Nirmala Sheoran returned to action after a year of “battling personal problems” and qualified for the Asian Games with an impressive timing of 52.36 seconds in the women’s 400m heats of the National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships here today. Since last year’s World Championships, Nirmala has not run a competitive race and her whereabouts and training place were not known to the Athletics Federation of India (AFI).

She, however, did not show any sign of rustiness as she claimed the first position clocking 52.36 at the Indira Gandhi Athletics Stadium. The Asian Games qualifying time for this event was set at 52.47 by AFI. “I am feeling good about my timing but I am still not 100 per cent, I just recovered from typhoid,” Nirmala, who has a personal best of 51.28, said after the race. 

Asked about the long span of time when no one knew where she was, Nirmala said was battling personal problems during that phase.  “I did not do any suspicious thing. Because of some personal and family problems, I went into depression after the World Championships. I wanted to compete at the Commonwealth Games but then I suffered from typhoid,” she said.

But did she disclose her training place to AFI? “No, I did not give any information to AFI. After the World Championships, I was at my village in Dadri, which is near Rajasthan. Later, I trained alone with my coach Vijender at Bhiwani,” she said. “I started training only a month back. There is some time before the Asian Games. I hope to do well in Asian Games.” Her coach Vijender said the target was to win gold in the Asian Games. “Poor girl, she had personal and family problems. She was down with typhoid two months back, and there were a lot of negative reports about her. Naturally, there was pressure on her. Our target is to win gold in the Asian Games,” said Vijender. Meanwhile, Odisha’s Dutee Chand also qualified for the Asian Games in the women’s 100m dash, clocking 11.42 in one of the heats. The qualifying time set by AFI for this event was 11.67.  She has also qualified for the Asian Games in 200m when she finished second behind Hima Das yesterday. — PTI

Other qualifiers

• Javelin: Shivpal Singh The UP thrower cleared 82.28m in his final throw, his personal best, to clinch the gold and better the Asian Games qualification mark of 81m  
• 3000 steeplechase: Sudha Singh The veteran ran her best race in two years, clocking 9:39.69. 
• Men’s 3000m steeplechase: Naveen Kumar He qualified with a timing of 8:39.42
• High jump: B Chethan The Karnataka high jumper cleared 2.25m, the qualifying mark 

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