For tiny Tamil Nadu sports club, a double delight at Federation Cup
It was a red-letter day for Kavinadu village in Pudukkottai district of Tamil Nadu. Two athletes from the local sports club — G Laxmanan and Surya Loganathan won gold to register a double in the men’s and women’s 5,000 metres at the Federation Cup on Friday. Laxmanan, who trains at the Army Sports Institute in Pune, a conveyor belt of middle and long distance runners, clocked 13:58.40 to dip under the qualifying guidelines set by the Athletics Federation of India for the Asian Athletics Championships in June. But to trace Laxmanan’s story of strife and appreciate his progress, one has to go back a couple of years, before Olympian Surinder Singh took him under his wing.
The mud track, just 180 metres in length, at the Kavinadu Youth Sports Club, was Laxmanan’s training base since he turned 14.
His training partner in the formative years was Surya, daughter of the local coach, S Loganathan. Laxmanan owes his career to the coach who had a keen eye for talent and adopted him as his son after spotting his natural flair to run.
Moving out of his home and staying with the coach worked out well for everyone. Loganathan, who has no son, took a liking to Laxmanan, who had lost his dad. The family, his mother and two brothers, ploughed a small patch of paddy field to make ends meet. Loganathan, realising that Laxmanan was a rough diamond, convinced him that he had the potential to become an international athlete.
“Loganathan sir has treated me like his own son. He took care of all my training needs, including diet and kit. It has been nearly 10 years since he has adopted me and trained me,” Laxmanan, a havaldar with the Madras Regimental Centre, said.
Coaching sessions were innovative, a compulsion given that the sports club’s main facility was the mud track. To build strength and stamina, trainees at the sports club would drag tyres attached to their waist and torso with a rope over the length of the mud track. To increase the difficulty level, Loganathan would direct one of the wards to sit on the tyre while another attempted to complete a sprint with the additional weight.
As Surya and Laxmanan won gold medals within a span of half an hour at the Mangala Stadium in Mangalore early Friday morning, in Pudukkottai, Loganathan eagerly awaited the results.
“My daughter Surya and Laxmanan have trained together for so many years. I was overjoyed when I heard that they both won the gold in the 5,000 metres. Laxmanan’s qualification for the Asian Athletics Championships is the icing on the cake. Athletes from villages and smaller towns have strong work ethics because they know they have no option but to excel,” Loganathan said.
All the trainees at the sports club are from very modest backgrounds, Loganathan adds. “Turning to athletics is an escape from poverty for most of my athletes. I have dug into my savings to provide shoes and running gear for my students. But when they win gold at a national event, it feels like all the sacrifice was worth it,” Loganathan adds.
Coach Surinder believes Laxmanan has the potential to consistently clock faster times. His timing on Friday would have given him the bronze at the previous edition of the Asian Athletics Championships.
“I am hoping to win a medal at the Asian Championships. It will be a just reward for the hard work put in by my coaches,” Laxmanan said.
As for Surya, she still needs to shift up a gear or two. Her timing of 16:55.90 was outside the qualifying guidelines for the Asian championships but she hopes to get faster as the season progresses.
After the retirement of Preeja Sreedharan and the meltdown of Kavita Raut, Surya is hoping to fill the void.
Day 1: TALKING POINTS
* Three athletes met the qualifying guidelines for the Asian Athletics Championships on the first day of the Federation Cup. Those who made the cut were Laxmanan in the men’s 5,000m, Mayookha Johny in women’s long jump and Suman Devi in women’s javelin. However, none of them set a meet record or a national record.
* Suman made the most of Anu Rani’s late arrival. Rani, the Incheon Asian Games bronze medallist, thought that the start time was 6pm for the women’s javelin, an oversight because she followed a ‘probable competition schedule’ instead of an official AFI schedule. Rani reported only after the event began, but officials allowed her a single throw which she fouled and ended up with a ‘no mark’ against her name.
* The women’s pole vault and discus throw events were reduced to a farce. Only national record holder VS Surekha turned up to participate after the second participant in the entry list, Kathy S Vakharia pulled out. In the discus throw, two participants were Baljit Kaur and Priyanka JS. The former registered 45.58 m and the latter 39.15, poor considering the national record stands at 64.76.
