An interesting ‘battle’ between foreign and Indian coaches

Usha expects surprises in the quartermile, Jeswin Aldrin targets 8.40m

Quartermiler Aishwarya Mishra, who shocked many with her Asia-leading 51.18s at the Federation Cup in April and then went incommunicado, does not figure in the entry list for the Inter-State National athletics which begins in Chennai’s Nehru Stadium on Friday.

But there is a bunch of young 400m runners who appear capable of producing some very fast times.

“I expect surprises and the gold to go for something like 51.5s. Even if we don’t have Aishwarya (Mishra) and Anjali Devi (now injured), don’t we we have Kiran,” asked P.T. Usha in a chat with The Hindu on Wednesday.

“Since Kiran (Pahal) has run 51.84s (Asia No. 2) in the recent Haryana State meet, she can probably do 51.65s with the competition in Chennai. And there will be two or three running 52-plus.”

Incidentally, four of the country’s five fastest quartermilers (Priya Mohan, third, 52.37; Rupal Choudhary fifth, 52.48) this year are all non-national campers with M.R. Poovamma (fourth, 52.44) being the lone camper in the top five while Usha’s national camp trainee Jisna Mathew is sixth (53.40).

That has now thrown up another interesting battle: one between foreign and Indian coaches!

Will the non-campers, trained by Indian coaches, be better than the National campers who are coached by Russia-born Galina Bukharina and who trained for two months in Turkey before going to Chennai?