London: Heptathlete Swapna Barman, who finished a poor 26th among 27 competitors at the London Worlds stated here Tuesday, that she completed the seven events in spite of a severe back pack.
“I have this back pain and it came back after the 100 metres,” Barman stated. “I wanted to pull out and I called my coach in Kolkata. However, he told me that I should at any cost finish my event or else my integrity would be doubted and I will face unkind words. So I continued, but my performance was severely affected,” she added.
Barman’s main strength is the high jump. When she won the heptathlon gold at the Bhubaneswar Asian Athletics Championships she had jumped 1.86 metre which was better than the individual gold medal winner of the event (Nadiya Dusanova of Uzbekistan) who cleared only 1.84m. Here in the high jump Barman could only clear 1.71m. “That cost me 200 points,” Barman informed.
The Indian finished with 5,341 points, way behind the 5,942 points she had achieved in Bhubaneswar.
In shot put, Barman cleared a distance of 10,81m, ran 200m race in 26.45s, did a 5.53m in long jump, threw the javelin to a distance of 43.49m and then clocked 2:20.17s in 800m. Each of her results in the seven events was worse than her performance in AAC2017.
“Had I competed without this back pain I would have done my personal best and could have crossed the 6,000-point mark. Then I would have been really happy. But the back pain really hampered my efforts, she pointed out.
“I will consult a doctor after returning home. I think I need a long rest. I am not taking part in the National Open Championships (in September). I hope to take part in the 2018 Commonwealth Games but my target will be to win a gold in the 2018 Asian Games,” she added.
Nirmala disappoints
Nirmala Sheoran produced a forgettable performance in the women’s 400m semifinals to finish among the bottom trio as India’s disappointing show continued at the London Worlds, Monday evening. She finished seventh with a time of 53.07s among eight competitors in the 2nd heat. It was much below her personal best of 51.28 seconds. The race was won by Bahrain’s Salwa Eid Naser in a time of 50.08 seconds.
