Sandra Babu is a long jump and triple dive professional athlete from Kerala’s Kannur district. She was training difficult for the World U20 Athletics Champion that was to be held in Nairobi this July when the pandemic struck. The championship was postponed. Babu must have been crestfallen, however she has rather simply upped the ante. The lively 18- year-old is now figured out to make it to the Tokyo Olympics, also postponed to July2021 She could not have made it to Tokyo this time, and now she gets a whole year to get ready for certifying.
The post ponement of the Olympics, for the first time in its 124- year history, was a deeply frustrating obstacle for numerous sportspeople, but lots of others have simply been spurred to believe bigger. They are determined to use this grace time to make an additional effort and catch that flight to Tokyo. Professional athletes who did not make the cut when the certification doors were opened previously now get time from December 1 this year to June 29, 2021 to qualify.
Raring to go
Kerala’s 18- year-old long jumper, Ancy Sojan, and West Bengal’s 22- year-old middle distance runner, Lili Das, are amongst those who are raring to take a severe chance at certifying. Stars like javelin throwers Neeraj Chopra and Annu Rani, and long jumper M. Sreeshankar, all stand to gain from the delayed Olympics. “Both Chopra and Sreeshankar were really in very good shape currently; they could have come up with excellent outcomes this year. They may be able to do even better in 2021,” says Volker Herrmann, the Sports Federation of India’s High Efficiency Director. “I would state it [the postponement] is an advantage for us. We have an extremely young group, which I believe is a big chance for us since these professional athletes now get another year to train.”
In her town Kelakam, Babu goes about her fitness drill and strength-building workouts with additional vigour. She is aware that she needs to jump 14.32 m to make the cut– 21 cm more than any Indian has ever done. Mayookha Johny, with 14.11 m embeded in 2011, holds the nationwide record. This does not rattle Babu’s experienced coach, T.P. Ouseph. He is busy monitoring her progress online, from Perumbavoor in Ernakulam, 270 km away. “If whatever goes well, she will qualify for the Olympics. Her opportunities are good; I would say 80%,” states Ouseph. “As far as the triple dive is concerned, it is easy to reach that range.”
Professional athletes Ancy Sojan gears up to qualify for Tokyo
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K. RAGESH.
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The 73- year-old Ouseph, a previous Air Force long jump and triple dive champion, has actually coached some of the country’s finest female jumpers– including long jumper Anju Bobby George, the nation’s lone medallist in the World Championships, and Bobby Aloysius, previous Asian champion high jumper, in their early years.
He anticipates her to touch14 “My targe