Tintu, the only solace

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The IAAF World Championship in Daegu, South Korea, was far from a delightful outing for the Kerala trio of Mayookha Johny, Tintu Luka and Renjith Maheswary as they could not match the standard they had produced earlier in the season.

Having qualified for next year’s London Olympics and also rewriting the triple jump national record twice this year, Mayookha was expected to make reach the 14m mark yet again, but the Mayookha fell short as she could latch on to only 13.99m, thus ending her campaign overall 19th.

The Kozhikode girl also faltered in the long jump with a below par jump of 6.37 m. Perhaps it was not a great atmosphere to be at your best as even the world champion Brittney Reese, with a personal best of 7.06m, could make only 6.82m in her gold medal-winning performance. So, that could give a bit of solace to Mayookha.

Meanwhile, 800m runner Tintu Luka showed great nerve as she ran aside defending champion Caster Semenya of South Africa.

But Tintu, a protégé of P.T. Usha, made a valiant effort in the semifinal, clocking 2:00.95 minutes, to book a berth in the Olympics.

However, it was Renjith Maheswary who disappointed the most as he fouled all his three attempts in the triple jump.

“I used to jump above 17m in my practice, but here jumped only 16.81m it makes me feel bad,” Renjith was quoted as saying to the Athletics Federation of India official website, indianathletics.org.