Target of women’s 4x400m team is to break NR in Paris Olympics, produce best-ever show: Poovamma

New Delhi, May 7 (PTI) The senior-most member of the Indian women’s 4x400m relay quartet that booked a Paris Games berth in Bahamas, MR Poovamma feels that the team can produce the country’s best-ever show in the Olympics and break the 20-year-old national record at the French capital in August.

The Indian quartet of Poovamma, Rupal Chaudhary, Jyothika Sri Dandi and Subha Venkatesan clocked 3 minutes and 29.35 seconds to finish second behind Jamaica (3:28.54s) in the second round heat number one of the World Athletics Relay in Nassau on Monday to book a Paris Games ticket.

“We wanted to better the timing but we could not do it. We will do it this season in the upcoming competitions,” Poovamma told PTI.

“This time, the target for the team in the Paris Olympics is to break the national record, reach the finals and better the earlier best. The national record is 20 years old and we have to better it. This team can do it.”

The national record for the women’s 4x400m relay stands in the name of the quartet of Chitra Soman, Rajwinder Kaur, KM Beenamol and Manjit Kaur with a timing of 3:26.89s, achieved at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

India’s best performance in the Olympics women’s 4×400 relay event was the seventh place finish twice — in 1984 Los Angeles and 2004 Athens.

Poovamma said the Paris Olympics qualification of the women’s 4x400m relay team should not be considered as a surprise result as the quartet was “sure” of achieving the feat.

“We knew that we had a good chance to qualify for the Olympics in men’s and women’s 4x400m relay. We were sure about it,” said the 33-year-old athlete. She said the decision to reach one month before the event also helped in the team’s quest for Olympics qualification as the move gave them enough time to acclimatise to the conditions.

“Because of visa issues, I could reach 20 days before competition but others reached here one month before the event. That really helped. For example, it is too windy here and you cannot suddenly come and do well here. It is good that we came here early and adapted to the conditions.

“Even in food also, we were provided almost similar to Indian food. I was thinking that it was like the food I used to get in Thiruvananthapuram (where the team trained before going to Bahamas).”

Poovamma said she continued full-time training during the two-year ban for a doping offence committed in 2021, before she finally returned to action during the Goa National Games last year.

“Had I taken break in training during the ban period, it would have been really difficult to come back. I was in Pune (where her husband Jithin Paul is posted as an Income Tax officer) and I trained at Army Medical College and Army Sports Institute.

“I continued the same two-session (morning and evening) training I had done at the national camp. I would run a full 400m race every two or three weeks,” she said.

The Arjuna Awardee is one of the most decorated athletes in the country, having won a women’s 4x400m relay gold and 400m individual silver in the 2013 Asian Championships.

She went on to win a gold and a bronze in the women’s 4x400m relay and 400m individual event. The Karanataka-born sportsperson, who married another international athlete from Kerala, also won a gold each in the women’s 4x400m and mixed 4x400m relay races in the 2018 Asian Games.