Federal Athletics Championships: Praveen Chithravel obeys her mother, joins the 17m hologram club

Prior to the triple jump event on the final day of the 61st Federal Senior Athletics Championships in Chennai, only four Indian men in the sport’s history had scored a distance in excess of 17 metres. .

Two of them, Abdulla Aboobacker (individual and season best 17.19m) and Karthik Unnikrishnan (PB and SB 17.10m), joined the club less than a month ago. Both were desperate to go and were fan favorites at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium on Tuesday night. Spectators were also behind Eldhose Paul of Kerala, who fell unsuccessfully with a 16.99m jump at the League Cup in Thehipalam earlier this year.

Undisturbed by the noise, a 21-year-old man dressed in red jumped up nearby. This is his home ground; Some know it, many don’t.

Meanwhile, a group of athletes from Uttar Pradesh raved about Aboobacker’s take-off. “Speed ​​dekhi two bhai ki? Hawa jaisa bhaag raha (Did you notice his speed? He ran like the wind),” one of them said. The other two nodded in agreement.

The conversation, which lasted a while, was truncated with “Oye teri (equivalent to something… unbelievable gasp)” as the announcer shouted: 16.90.

That 21-year-old red jumper, now wearing a sleeveless white vest, Praveen Chithravel of Tamil Nadu just passed Aboobacker’s first jump – 16.67m. The UP athletes couldn’t contain their surprise.

When Praveen returned, his Cuban coach Yoandri Betanzos called him from the upper deck of the east stand. “Calm down” was all he said. Praveen hears him and walks back to where he was a few minutes ago.

The event continued and the players played catch up with Praveen’s mark. Praveen returned to his pre-jump routine. He stood calmly with both hands to his ears, possibly in an attempt to stop the frenzied celebrations following Aboobacker’s second jump at 16.89m. The game is in progress. A moment later, he returned to open his arms wide and stood still for a few seconds.

Time for his second jump. Praise the gesture to get the audience to clap for him. They are quick to respond. Two big steps and one jump after that, a collective gasp at the end of the photographer conveys that it was a big jump. Praveen’s celebrations draw crowds at this time. The athletes knew it was a big jump, the crowd felt it. Looks like a whole minute before the last announcement was made: 17.18.

The organizers confirmed on mike, “Good news from the triple jump! Praveen Chithravel of Tamil Nadu surpassed the meeting record and qualified for the CWG (Commonwealth Games) with a jump of 17.18m”.

The 17.18m jump helps Praveen win his world championship

Incidentally, Praveen also surpassed the World Athletics Championship qualifying standard of 17.14m. Arpinder Singh’s previous meeting record of 17.17m was set in Lucknow in 2014. Renjith Maheshwary’s 17.30m in 2016 remains the national record.

Praveen’s mother, Prema, called shortly after he won the event. She saw her son in action on the live feed. “She cried. She told me, it’s your yard… you know what to do. I don’t need to tell you what to do,” Praveen said. The young man from Thanjavur district was didn’t come home for almost eight months.

He couldn’t talk to her for long. Officials put him on the podium for a victory ceremony.

Later, Praveen said he was fighting through the pain to compete. “There was a blood clot in my heel in May after my first jump while attending a meeting in Italy. But I jumped three more times just to rank up and those jumps were in the 16.20 range. But the pain is increasing.

“Since then, for the next three weeks, I stopped doing intense workouts. Today too, I can’t think of anything in my head. All three of my coaches asked me to go out and give my best. During practice, we also didn’t dance much. Even training with spikes is very little. I went in person and played. It’s all about smart work and we worked on the elements that were required depending on the situation,” he said.

Praveen is currently mentored by Betanzos, a former world triple jumper and two-time world championship silver medalist, but he takes his hat off to every coach who has participated in his track and field journey. he.

Betanzos took over coaching duties from Antony Yaich at the Sports Inspirational Academy founded by the JSW Group, supporting Praveen.

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Praveen talks about the similarities and differences between the two. “He (Betanzos) joined us from October to November last year and we are just building a relationship. It’s progressing well. Both (Betanzos and Yaich) are very similar in some ways, and different in others. Yaich focuses on speed and power, but Betanzos focuses on explosiveness and jumping, while always working on technique. His focus is on perfecting it. We have studied the technique to complete 60-70% of the process. I 100% expect it to happen, or I can tell you if it does, just before Paris (Olympics) 2024.”

Praveen had asked Betanzos to be tough with him, in case he was distracted. “I taught him some bad words in Tamil. Only that worked when he needed to pull me to fix my mistake. Nothing else seems to work,” Praveen joked.

Praveen pays tribute to a special man, one of his childhood teachers. “Mathiyazhagan Sir is my science teacher. He often used his own money to take me to district meetings and other competitions. So I owe him a lot. He could teach me science and get on with his life at the same time. But he didn’t,” he said.

Praveen doesn’t have any big plans yet for CWG Birmingham and the world championships in Oregon. “I don’t think too much about these things. I’m just focusing on doing my best every day, and trying to stay away from laziness.” By his admission, he will do what his favorite actor is, says Kamal Haasan in the film. Vikram“Pathukalam da (We’ll see when it arrives). ”