The 70s were the golden period of Indian athletics, a fact often emphasized at multi-discipline games. In some events, India has made progress, but others point to a stark reality.
Take the men’s long jump: in 1974, a Kerala legend, T. C. Yohannan, jumped 8.07 to win a gold at the 1974 Tehran Asian Games.
Fifty-two years later, a modern superstar, Murali Srikanth, won a silver with the exact same distance: 8.07 m. In much the same way, the Indian 800 m’s dismal performance by Afzal and Pooja took us back to 1974, when legends like Sriram Singh and Geeta Zutshi excelled at the Asian level.
Sriram, in fact, regularly collected golds, with his star performances coming at the 1976 Olympics and his record standing for nearly 45 years.
Similarly, when Sawan Barwal broke the marathon record in Rotterdam this year, he was breaking a 48-year-old record set by Shivnath Singh in 1978.
Sheer nostalgia, having had the pleasure of these legends and now enjoying the Gulveers and Vithyas too!
