World Athletics Championship this year held
successfully at Moscow in Russia has just been concluded. Kudos to Russia for organising this Championship
so successfully. The hero of this Championship
came out again the sprinter Usain Bolt from Jamaica and again the black skin
power came out dominant, in Track and Field events, the Black Power out beat
White Power thereby again proving its excellence in sports.
In any Athletics Meet, 100 Metres sprint and
100 x 4 Sprint Relay are the 2 most interesting and exciting events to know who
is the fastest man on this planet individually and which is the fastest quartet
of this planet respectively. Because of
this interest in this Meet every eye was focused on these two events. Individually Usain Bolt regained his
supremacy as the fastest man of this planet.
Now, regarding the 4 x 100 Relay, its whole magic
depends not much on running fastest as you can but more on the mode and efficiency of handing over of Batons
to the next sprinter.
Throughout my scholastic career at Arpora and
at St. Xavier's College Mapusa, I was a deep athlete as fastest runner of Goa and
an individual champion of Goa. My glorious days in this field were during my
school career where I was guided in this field by that genius Principal of the
School, the late Fr. Philippe Neri Mendonca. During those days till my last
participation, Arpora School always won the championship by focusing more on
both the Relays which fetched more marks to win the overall championship.
Taking this view into consideration, Fr.
Mendonca personally used to guide us how to exchange the Batons and we all the
4 representatives of the school used to pass the Baton to the next runner with
lightning speed without any pause or slowing down while passing the Baton. Everyone
used to admire us then and I was always the first runner creating a lead in the
beginning itself while second was Shelu, third Andre Joao both from Calangute
and the last was Peter from Parra.
Speaking on the efficiency of this Relay
team, Fr. Mendonca once said, such a magnificent quartet he has never seen
before in Goa though there were gigantic runners and sprinters in Goa.
The purpose of this write-up is to comment on
the efficiency of Jamaican Relay team of 100 x 4 that won the Gold Medal in the
just concluded Moscow Meet. Though this Relay Team won the first place for
Jamaica yet according to me it had some flaws and not perfect in its
efficiency. If Fr. Mendonca was alive now
he would surely agree with my view point
though this Relay Team was trained by the world best trainers to create world
best Relay Team.
Its first flaw was of slowing down at the time
of changing the Baton to the next sprinter.
Its second flaw was receiving the Baton in one hand and then transferring
it to the other hand thereby changing the concentration to this process of
transferring the Baton from one hand to the other thus slowing down of the
speed. And its third flaw was taking more time to look behind at the sprinter carrying
the Baton.
Among all the 4 sprinters, Usain Bolt alone was
perfect in his methods and again he was the hero of this golden Relay team of
Jamaica. In this Relay Team there was not only one Usain Bolt but 4 Usain Bolts
and precisely because of this Jamaica won the Gold Medal.
India is having such a vast population with
such a vast geographical boundaries compared to tiny Jamaica and yet India
cannot produce world class athletes means something difficult to digest. Jamaica creates
topmost athletes in the world both in male as well as in female domain. India
is still taking shelter and pleasure in creating one Milkha Singh and one P.T.
Usha some years ago even though neither of
them won any Olympic Medal. In this Meet at Moscow, India sent a powerful
team of 15 athletes who all returned home empty handed and powerless.
I feel India must hire the know-how and trainer
from Jamaica to train Indian athletes especially when they are very young. At the age of 16 Usain Bolt started creating
ripples in running whence he was entrusted with the efficient trainers who
moulded him into the World best with the help of world best facilities. India can
also send its budding athletes to Jamaica for further advanced training and
thus produce best of athletes both in male and female ranks.
When I ran the fastest 100 metres and created a
record for Goa and became individual champion of Goa, I was just 17. And this feat I attained on my own efforts
without any guidance of a qualified professional coach. If at that time I was
picked up by the concerned authorities for further professional training, God
knows where I would reach. Like me there
are many young boys and girls rotting in the absence of proper avenues,
guidance and facilities.
Gulf Arabs became powerful soccer Powers in
Asia only because of the best of soccer training methods and facilities they
hired from Brazilian soccer.
Kuwait.
