Where was she all these months? What was she doing? What sort of form is she in now?
These are the big questions surrounding quartermiler Nirmala Sheoran as she gets ready for the National Inter-State athletics championships which begins in Guwahati on Tuesday.
It was shocking to hear late last year that the 400m Asian champion had vanished without a trace leaving the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) and the Athletics Federation of India in a dilemma.
It now emerges that 22-year-old Nirmala, from Haryana, has been training at a secret base in Rajasthan.
“I spoke to her coach Vijender a few days ago…Nirmala had been training at a ‘hidden place’ at Ratangarh (Churu District) in Rajasthan,” Raj Kumar Mittan, the Secretary of the Haryana State Athletics Association, told The Hindu .
“She is now training at Bhiwani with Vijender, they came back last month. And Vijender told me that they had been going everywhere without any problem.”
Calls to coach Vijender, for further details, went unanswered.
And what sort of form is Nirmala in now?
“She is in the 51-sec form (for the 400m), that is what Vijender told me,” said Raj Kumar.
That means Nirmala (personal best 51.28s), who has been skipping many national meets the last couple of years only to pop up and produce stunning timings in final trials before the 2016 Olympics and last year’s Asians, is at it again.
That should set the 400m on fire and with Assam’s 18-year-old Hima Das also in awesome form, clocking a personal best 51.32s at the recent Commonwealth Games, the quartermile will be the event to watch in Guwahati.
But questions are being raised in many quarters about how Nirmala is able to make a smooth return to the circuit.
“Everybody says that she was untraceable but if NADA officials were unable to get her for tests when she was in the Registered Testing Pool, aren’t there many options open to them? Did they use these options?” asked a prominent coach.
“And how come she is out of the RTP now?”
