CHANDIGARH: A couple of hours after completing her second successive middle-distance double, Harmilan Kaur Bains credited the weather conditions in Warangal, the venue for the ongoing 60th National Open Athletics Championships for her golden feat.
In a repeat of the National Inter-State Championships at Patiala in June, the 23-year-old on Saturday added the 800m crown to the 1500m title she won a couple of days back. While Harmilan knows she can’t turn back time, she feels her Tokyo dreams could have been fulfilled had the June event been held in Warangal.
“I would have qualified for Tokyo in similar conditions, today the weather was superb for track events, it was a pretty relaxed race. But again there’s no point in thinking about the past. I stuck to my coach’s (Suresh Saini) plans of picking up the pace later into the race and thankfully it has worked on both occasions,” she told TOI.
Harmilan drew on her stamina and speed to show a clean pair of heels to Delhi runner KM Chanda for the fourth successive time this year, before pocketing another 800m gold with a timing of 2:03.82.
With the end of the domestic season, the Patiala girl has already her plans set for the Federation Cup, and Asian Games and Commonwealth Games, next year.
“Frankly speaking, I prefer taking one step at a time, but the initial plan is to be a part of the first major international event of my career. Being in the Asian Games and Commonwealth Games would be a great boost to my confidence, and besides that I am looking at getting into some international competitions.”
“For that I am targeting one of the Diamond Leagues, where I can test myself for sub-4 timing. Ideally, I am aiming for 3:58 for 1500m and around 1:57 for the 800m. The level of competition in such events will help me analyse my performances,” she added.
Coming back to the ongoing Nationals, Harmilan now hopes for another medal in the 4x400 women’s event on Sunday.
Meanwhile in other events of the day, Railways’ B Aishwarya also claimed a horizontal jumps double by winning the Triple Jump less than 24 hours after claiming the Long Jump title. To her credit, she won both events with the best efforts of the year by an Indian woman jumper. Aishwarya, who won the Long Jump with a leap of 6.52m, edged out Renu Grewal (Haryana) by 4cm to double her joy.
There was joy for Services when its athletes swept all podium places in the men’s 800m and the gruelling 50km Race Walk to complete a hat-trick after it sent out all three medallists in the men’s 3000m Steeplechase on Friday. Mohammed Afsal showed lasting power to edge ahead of Ankesh Chaudhary and Krishan Kumar in the 800m final.
