Also-rans try to get in the running for 2012 Olympics
Matthew Beard, Sports News Correspondent
20.07.09
The London Olympics are three years away, but these athletes are already getting ready by training on an East End running track.
They need to: this is the Indian team - the weakest in Games history.
In a drive to overcome that dubious distinction they have set up a training camp down the road from the Olympic Park. The mission: to win India its first athletics medal since 1900.
The nation has won only 20 medals including that year. Beijing last year was their best - two bronzes and a gold - but with a population of a billion, that’s roughly one medal for every 333million people.
Over the next six weeks, some 40 leading athletes will be put through their paces at Terence McMillan Stadium in Plaistow, following high-level orders to bring home titles from the world’s greatest sports event.
The team has 22 coaches, physiotherapists and dietitians.
Under a strict regime, athletes train twice a day, six days a week, and are early to bed at their hotel in Epping Forest.
They are acclimatising to unpredictable weather and learning to switch to high-protein European diets.
And they will be able to see the stadium they hope to compete in rising long before their rivals do.
Team manager Rahul Pawar, 32, said: “We want an athletics medal in 2012. That is our target and that is why we have come here. We are getting used to the weather - some of these athletes have come from temperatures of 40C - and are familiarising ourselves with the area. It gives you an important psychological edge. We will leave no stone unturned for 2012.”
Mr Pawar said it was too early to identify a potential 2012 medallist. The top achievement of their best 400metres runner, KM Binn, was to get to the semi-finals at the 2004 Athens Games.
For most of the athletes their best early chance of success will be on home turf next year at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.
Shotputter Omprakash Singh, 22, said: “I want gold at the Commonwealth Games but the pressure is really on us for the Olympics. It’s been all about cricket for so long in India, but the Olympics is the big international stage.”
India’s leaders, prompted by the state-sponsored sporting excellence of China, have been investing about £150million a year in sport. India is rated the poorest Olympic nation judged by medals per head of population.
Track and field has not delivered a medal since 1900, when it was under British rule and Calcutta-born Norman Pritchard came second in the 200metre sprint and 200metre hurdles.
The 1988 Seoul and 1992 Barcelona Games passed without a single medal. There was further ignominy when the men’s hockey team, with eight golds since 1928, failed to qualify for Beijing. It prompted national soul searching.
Even so, Beijing was a relative success. There were two bronzes and Abhinav Bindra won the 10metre air rifle.
Mr Pawar said: “Up until now the government has had other priorities such as education and infrastructure. We were dependent on agriculture and the main concern was when it was going to rain. Now we want it to rain medals.”