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There were the Commonwealth Games stars, and there were others who stayed deprived of the flush of that after-success, who couldn't wait for the next competition to come sooner, who craved the Asian Games to prove heroes weren't made in Delhi only.
Sudha Singh couldn't forget this complete denial of appreciation even as she watched athlete-after-athlete from her team gain recognition, while she rued her own failed last-gasp effort that had kept her away from the podium at the Nehru Stadium.
So on Sunday, in distant Guangzhou this 24-year-old Rae Bareilly woman had her second chance in her steeplechase event. Sudha stayed with the herd just a step ahead at times before she upped her pace hitting the last 400 metres. The final water-barrier cleared with a length's gap at least between her and her follower Sudha was now galloping to a historical gold medal for India, when she was snapped out of her smug confidence by a red blur gaining pace. Chinese Jin Yuan had smartly stayed back all this while, and aware of her longer strides planned to sprint full-burst.
Photo-finish
Sudha had been there before been where she'd let glory pass her by when finishing fifth in the CWG after being in the leading-3 till the last stretch beckoned. "As soon as I noticed the Chinese girl from the corner of my eye, all the memories of the Commonwealth Games crossed my mind. I remembered how I'd lost out on the last leg of the race. I gave it my all and flung myself ahead to grab that gold," she recalls a race that gave India its second proud athletics gold on the track at Guangzhou with a timing of 9:55.67, ahead of the Chinese girl's 9:55.71 in an exciting photo-finish that coach Nikolai Snesarev gave him minor cardiac trouble.
Sudha's triumph though came well after Preeja Sreedharan had set the tone for the evening, with a race so tactically suave that the Japanese were left wondering, which bolt from the Indian blue had hit them.
Like the hydro-electric power station back home near Idukki, Preeja saw the turbines set into motion as she rapidly left the pack behind to move into lead with Raut right behind her. Preeja with over a decade's experience in racing, set off as if on second wind to clock 31:50.47, ahead of Raut who came in at 31:55.44.
Like Sudha's this was a CWG carry-forward tale. Snesarev recalls how Preeja was packed off to the hospital soon after the Delhi event, after she'd refused to opt out and rest when suffering from fever and cold. In an ultimate tribute to her, Kavita Raut insisted that had Preeja been fully fit in Delhi, she's have walked away with the gold.
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