It’s a marathon day alright, and India’s top women runners who have made the cut for the Rio Olympics will be seen in action — OP Jaisha, Lalita Babar and Sudha Singh will pound the streets of Mumbai, not only to better their own record in the 42.195 km distance starting from the gothic-style Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), but also compete with 10 elite women runners from Ethiopia and Kenya, all of whom will hunt in a pack for the top prize of $41,000. Jaisha, Lalita and Sudha had been undergoing high altitude training in Ooty for almost two years.
The 32-year-old Jaisha and the 26-year-old Lalita appeared fiercely determined to throw down the gauntlet on the experienced African runners, among whom the 10th-placed Kenyan Pamela Kipchoge has a best timing of 2:35:27s against Jaisha’s best of 2:37:29s and Lalita’s 2:38:21s. Last year, Jaisha and Lalita took the 7th and 8th places, while Sudha finished 10th with a timing of 2:42:11s.
An upbeat Jaisha confirmed at a press conference on Friday that Belarusian coach Nikolai Snesarev had taken a call that after Sunday’s run she will not take part in any marathon race. She even stuck her neck out to say that she is “close to winning a medal” at Rio, even though she is not sure of the track event — 1500m or 5000m — she will eventually choose to run. In fact, she has to qualify for the metric mile (1500m) and 12-and-half lap 5000m.
Rio challengeJaisha — who broke the 19-year-old National marathon timing in last year’s SCMM — has the task of achieving the qualifying times for Rio; 4:07:00 for the 1500m and 15;24:00 for the 5000m. “I have done 4:03 in 1,500m and I am confident of doing the qualifying mark of 15:24. I am targeting between 14:40 and 14:50,” she revealed, quite confident that all will be fine in the months ahead.
Repeating a number of times that she is backed by the Kerala Government and AFI, Jaisha said: “My coach thinks I have a chance in the marathon at Rio, but I feel I have a better chance in the 1,500m and 5,000m. I am going to focus on these two events after the marathon, from April. I will take part in Europe to qualify. I am running the marathon for endurance.”
Lalita, who has qualified for the Rio 3000m steeplechase event, also said she will be running the marathon for endurance and with the aim of competing with the Africans. Sudha Singh has also qualified for the Rio marathon event.
The other Indian women who have entered the marathon are Swati Gadhave, Kavita Raut, Vijaymala Patil, Rashmi Gurnule, Jyoti Gawate, Priyanka Patel, Amandeep Kaur, Ranjana Kumarni and Jyoti Singh.
