Manu Francis felt a bit uncomfortable as he stood for a picture with his friend and fellow-highjumper Geo Jos.
“Can we take the photo sitting down on the foam pit? He’s too tall, it will look a bit awkward for me,” says Manu, who despite being close to six feet looks tiny when compared to the six-foot, six-inch Geo.
Manu, however, stood tall that day at the Maharaja’s Stadium. For, he had defeated Geo, the junior national champion, in the youth boys section, and won the State championship gold.
And he had his feet firmly on the ground.
“The fight at the State level and the National level is always between the two of us and it is very close,” said Manu, the son of a tourist vehicle driver and the junior national runner-up, behind Geo. Geo’s personal best is 2.05m and Manu is just a centimetre behind.
Surprisingly, despite being the country’s best juniors in the high jump, both Manu and Geo, from Varapuzha, took up the sport just three years ago. Both train under the same coach, Manoj T. Thomas at the Navadarshan Academy and have their daily sessions at the Maharaja’s Stadium.
And their rise has been rather stunning.
Geo, son of physical education teacher George Shinde, was a basketball player in his school team, Koonamavu’s Chavara School, but when he tasted success as a highjumper in his first meet in the under-14 section, he stuck to the new sport.
The presence of Sreenith Mohan, the junior national record holder who trained under T.P. Ouseph in the KCA Mission Gold scheme in Kochi for nearly two years, had been a big boost for the two youngsters.
But with the national camp being closed for high jumpers and the Ukrainian coach Yevgeniy Nikiten who trained the country’s best jumpers in Bengaluru being sent back, the sport is going through a tough time.
Sreenith Mohan, one of the national campers to be sent back, looked lost as he won the men’s high jump gold during this week’s State senior championship in Kochi and that has hit Geo and Manu too in a big way.
“We had hoped to get into the national camp soon and that had motivated us to go higher and higher but now with the national camp for high jumpers being stopped, there is a drop in motivation,” said Geo. “The foreign coach at the camp, Nikiten, had trained world champion Bohdan Bondarenko and that had really excited us but the new development has really disappointed us.”
Geo and Manu now hope to do well at the forthcoming youth Nationals in Goa and the first Asian youth championship in Doha and get high jump back on track.
