It was raining when she ran to glory in the 800m final at the Asian athletics championship at Wuhan on Sunday.
It was raining when Tintu Luka dropped in at The Hindu office here on Tuesday too, along with Jisna Mathew, her teammate in the silver-winning 4x400m relay squad, and their coach P.T. Usha. It was just a couple of hours earlier they had landed at the Calicut airport, after a long journey from China.
It proved quite a memorable journey for Tintu, as she won her first 800m gold at a major international meet. Often she has had to settle for lesser medals.
“The gold at the Asian means an awful lot to me,” she said. “I would not have been happy with anything less. Not winning a gold had been bothering me for a long time; I feel a big burden is off my shoulders now.”
Tintu said she wasn’t bothered too much about failing to meet the Olympic qualifying mark.
“I could have done that too at Wuhan, but the persistent rain on the day of the race affected my timing,” she said. “My next big event will be the world championship, to be held in Beijing in August, but I hope to compete in a couple of international events before that.”
Usha said the Asian gold would make a world of difference to Tintu’s confidence. “She badly needed a gold at an event like this,” she said. “It will also silence her and my critics.”
Usha, who was also the coach of the 4x400m relay team, said India still had the best team in Asia. “We shouldn’t forget that it was an inexperienced team that we fielded at Wuhan, and we still came very close to the gold,” she said. “I thought both Jisna and Debasree Majumdar rose to the occasion to support the more seasoned Tintu and M.R. Poovamma.”
She is particularly happy for her ward Jisna, who is just 16.
“She made good use of the exposure she got at such a young age,” she said.
“And it was a young team that India fielded at Wuhan. Our athletes did very well, to finish third overall.”
