Mumbai: There was an uproar in India ahead of the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games because shooting had been removed from the roster. And calls were made to boycott the event altogether because of it.
Event Context
Eldhose Paul and Abdulla Aboobacker leapt farthest in the triple jump, bagging gold and silver medals respectively. Tejaswin Shankar took bronze in the high jump event that included former World Championships gold medallist Donald Thomas of the Bahamas and 2024 Olympic champion Hamish Kerr.
Priyanka Goswami (silver) and Sandeep Kumar (bronze) stood on the podium in women’s and men’s 10,000m race-walk respectively. Sreeshankar became the first long jumper to win a medal since Anju Bobby George won bronze in 2002.
And Avinash Sable created a stir when he denied Kenya a seventh consecutive podium sweep in the men’s 3000m steeplechase, narrowly missing out on gold while coming second.
Player Focus
India can take a lot of inspiration from the 2022 performances as the team gears up for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, which begins on Thursday. With the Asian Games also scheduled to take place later this year, and given the quality of the field, it is the CWG that remains the true yardstick for Indian athletics.
“(Athletics in) the CWG are at a higher standard compared to the Asian Games when it comes to competition,” said Murali Sreeshankar, one of India’s premier long jumpers, during a virtual interaction.
“Getting those eight medals was something huge and also the quality of the performances were also really up there,” said Sreeshankar, who won silver in Birmingham.
This time too, Indian athletes have produced a clutch of excellent performances building up to the Games.
The 100m men’s sprint record edged closer to the 10-second barrier when Gurindervir Singh clocked 10.09 seconds in May. Ancy Sojan, who will not be competing in Glasgow, broke Anju’s 2004 women’s long jump record by five centimetres when she cleared 6.88m last month. And Sawan Barwal broke a 48-year-old record when he clocked 2:11:58 hrs to break the national marathon record.
In men’s pole vault, Dev Meena set a new national record of 5.46m last month. Sarvesh Kushare recently broke Shankar’s high jump national record by clearing 2.31m – the seventh best jump recorded so far this season.
Sreeshankar too has been in decent form. The 27-year-old has crossed 8 metres consistently and has won each of the five meets he has competed in so far this year.
“The quality of performance is comparable to what we have in global standard, especially in field events like men’s long jump, men’s triple jump, women’s long jump, men’s high jump and javelin throw. The pole vaulters are also coming good.”
The field at the Asian Games is competitive, but the one at the CWG demands more. In the 18 CWG editions India has participated in, 36 medals have come from athletics, eight from the last edition alone. In the 19 Asian Games India has attended, the athletics contingent has won 283 medals with 29 coming at 2023 Hangzhou.
The attention is now firmly on Glasgow, and for what may follow should the athletics contingent shine again.
Team Analysis
Prior to the 2022 Games, the best showing by an Indian athletics contingent at a single CWG held outside India were the three medals won in 2006, 2014 and 2018.
“This time, Indian athletics is also on a very good high because we have a lot of national records being broken, a lot of personal bests being set,” he said from Spala, Poland, where the Indian athletics team has been training.
Match Outlook
Shooting has been India’s most lucrative event at the Games with the country winning a total of 135 medals (63 gold). If India were to stay highly ranked in the overall medal tally, shooting was always going to play a big role.
In its absence, it was expected that the overall tally would be significantly lower, given that the Indian contingent won a tournament-high 16 medals in shooting at 2018 Gold Coast, including seven gold.
But when the Birmingham Games took place and India indeed took part, it was the athletics contingent that stood out for some stunning performances. Punching above their weight going up against athletics powerhouses Jamaica, Great Britain, Australia and Kenya, India returned with eight medals (one gold, four silver, three bronze) – the country’s best tally in the sport at a CWG edition held outside India.
And this without an injured Neeraj Chopra, the reigning Olympic javelin champion, competing.
“Commonwealth Games will really set the tone for the Olympic cycle which is to commence from next year,” Sreeshankar said. “So, if we have a good, solid performance, that will really get the momentum going for the Los Angeles Olympics (2028) cycle as well.”
