Job well done, job well earned for Sudha Singh at the Asian Games

For the majority of the two years since Rio, all Sudha Singh could think about was the Asian Games.

The biggest medal of her career thus far, had come at the Asiad. But that was Guangzhou, eight years before Jakarta and a lot had changed in between. Sudha’s the first one to acknowledge this.

“When I won the gold in 2010 (in 3000m steeplechase), I did with a timing of 9:55 (9 minutes and 55 seconds) upwards. Since then, the event has considerably sped up and I was up against the Bahraini who had clocked a personal best of 9:10,” says Sudha.

The 32-year-old did run a fast race with a time of 9:40.03, three seconds short of Winfred Mutile Yavi, but the gold proved elusive. Nevertheless, after the set-back of Incheon four years ago, Sudha was pleased with the medal.

Unfinished business from Incheon

“Four years back, I was fourth and missed out on a medal. This time, I was pretty certain I wouldn’t give my critics more ammunition and that I would come back with a medal,” she reminisces.

That race in Incheon featured Ruth Jebet, the eventual winner and the world record holder. In Jakarta, Sudha tried to stick close to Yavi, but mindful not to commit a foul or get disqualified.

“I wasn’t getting carried away by the competition. Someone’s good at jumping, another good at sprinting. I was just mindful of not getting disqualified, after we had already suffered a loss of a medal,” Singh spoke about Govindan Lakshmanan’s disqualification from the 10,000 metres after the long distance runner had won a bronze medal.

There was a time when Sudha didn’t know whether she would make it to Jakarta. Soon after returning from Rio, she contracted swine flu, resulting in severe pain in her joints and months of bed-rest.

“Those months passed very slowly. I was at home, just resting and not knowing when I would be back,” admits Sudha of her post-Olympic ordeal. The illness took a while to overcome and Sudha says she wasn’t at her 100% at the Asian Athletics Championships in Bhubaneswar.

“I won, although it was a very slow time. I was doing 9:59, times in the range of 10-minutes plus. I was far from happy with the time, as I was used to running faster,” she says.

Unhappy with her times, Sudha says that many ‘critics’ asked her to give up the sport or retire because of her falling times. The runner from Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh, thanked them for the ‘motivation’ that they gave her. “It definitely spurred me on. I don’t want to take any names, but I would like to thank all of them who said I couldn’t win a medal at the Asiad.”

A change in training

After being overlooked for the World Championships squad to go to London, Sudha said she had stopped training in Dharamsala under Nikolai Snesarev. Singh would start training under long distance runner and 10,000 metres national record holder Surinder Singh.

A stint in Bhutan helped her, according to Sudha. “I was doing 9:20’s in the training camp in Bhutan but there was a bit of humidity in Jakarta. That affected my timing,” she says.

For Sudha, another fight has come to an end. After winning the gold in Bhubaneswar, she had appealed for a job which she says was rightfully hers due to the Asian Games medal earned in 2010.

Currently employed as a Chief Ticket Inspector in Mumbai, Singh applied for a job in 2014 but had not received it due to her meeting the eligibility criteria of winning a medal at the Olympics or the Asian Games according to a government order of 2015 which stated all medallists at the two prestigious meets were eligible.

“I have always wanted to work in my home state, closer to my family. I only want to work in the Sports Department,” she says. While the UP government have announced that she will offered a monetary prize and a job, Singh says her focus is on the upcoming IAAF Inter-continental challenge.

Sudha will turn out for the Asia-Pacific team in the meet held in Ostrava, Czech Republic. “Everything else, including the job offer, will come after that.”