Letter to Editor
Legendary Athlete not on TOP List.
Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports selected 45 athletes for
financial assistance under the Target Olympic Podium (TOP) scheme. Selected
athletes include 17 shooters, 6 shuttlers. 5 athletes, 7 wrestlers, 8 boxers
and 2 sailors. One notable omission in the list is celebrated athlete O P
Jaisha.
O P
Jaisha is one of the most promising and talented athlete of India. Her
dedication, devotion and determination can be gauged from the fact that with
just 3 months training she participated in Mumbai Marathon and not only won the
race in 2:37:29 but also broke the 20 year old record on her debut. Completing
the grueling 42 KM race itself is a stupendous task and breaking a 2 decade
record is unprecedented in the annals of the athletic history of the world. In
the recently concluded National Games, she won gold in 10K in a record time of
33 Minutes and 8.55 seconds. She finished far ahead of her competitors and even
the second placed athlete was more than one lap behind her, whereas generally
such runs will end in photo finish. Jaisha could have definitely improved her
time, had there been better competition. She also won the 5K race also comfortably.
Jaisha won several medals for the country at National/ International
competitions including Asian Games, Asian Athletic Championship and
Commonwealth Games. She is a golden girl with nerves of steel. Her performance
is unparalled, incredible, unprecedented and amazing.
I am
amazed and dismayed that name of a legendary athlete O P Jaisha is not included
in the list of TOP (Target Olympic Podium) announced by the Ministry of Youth
affairs and Sports recently. She was strongly recommended by the Athletic
Federation of India and according to AFI she is “arguably the finest athlete of
the country at present”. How anybody can ignore the incredible achievements
like breaking 20 year marathon record on debut, beating the nearest competitor by more than one lap
at the 10K race (Normally it used to be a photo finish) in the recently
concluded National games at Kerala is a million dollar question. She is one of
the 3 athletes qualified for the World athletic championship at China during
August 2015. Another athlete-Vikas Gowda- who recently qualified for the meet,
is included in the TOP list. Jaisha belongs to a very poor family and she spent
her childhood in abject poverty. “Unable
to bear the acute hunger, I had to eat mud and my mother silently watched the
horror with tears rolling down her eyes” OP Jaisha told during the course of an
interview with a Journalist. She practices upto 55K a day and has to spend
money from her feeble pocket to buy costly shoes. I am attaching a photo of our
house which will give a glimpse of her poverty. Jaisha is our best bet for an
Olympic Medal as she has the potential to improve tremendously. In the 120 year old history of Olympics, we
had only two chances to win an athletic medal, first way back in 1960 by Milkha
Singh and second by P T Usha in the 1984 Olympics. Usha’s talent was exposed to
the nation during the 1982 Asian games.
If she was given best possible training and international exposure by
participation in various meets worldwide during those two years she could have
definitely won a medal. While her competitors participated in several
international meets before participating in Olympics, P T Usha did not
participate in a single event. The country was deprived of a possible gold
medal due to the negligence and lethargy of some people. We should not repeat
that mistake again in the case of Jaisha.
There
are innumerable reasons for her inclusion in TOP list but there is not a single
reason for her exclusion. I still believe that it was an inadvertent omission
and the authorities will correct it sooner than later.
E M Adithyan
2nd May 2015
Elangalloor Mana
Edapal-679576
Kerala
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