Victorious Vikas and Twinkling Tintu

Athletics is the king of all games. This doesn’t mean that other sports are underdogs or less. The track and field events of the athletics bring out the best of the season’s runners, discus thrower, Pole-vault, steeplechase run and many other events that give you goose bumps while you watch.

Recently, the Asian Athletics Championship of 2015 took place in Wuhan, China. Apart from all the medal winners of India, these two athletes from India among the squad have made our country proud. Vikas Gowda won the discus throw event with the Gold medal and Tintu Lukka has won the Gold medal in the 800m finals at the Asian Athletics Championship in Wuhan, China.  Vikas cleared 62. O3 metres of discus throw to bag his second consecutive gold at the Asian Championships. For Tinku, this Gold medal has a special importance as this is her first international Gold medal.

Vikas Gowda is from Mysore (Karnataka) who did his schooling in the US. His father Shive coached the 1988 Indian Olympic track team. He had participated in the 2008 Beijing Olympic but failed to qualify for the finals. His personal best throw is also India’s national record of 66.28 metres. His first gold medal came in the year 2013 in Pune, during the Asian championships. In 2014, during the Commonwealth Games, he became the second man to win the gold medal in athletics just after Milkha Singh (Popularly known as India’s flying Sikh).

Tintu Lukka is blessed to be coached by P.T.Usha at the Usha School of Athletics. Everyone knows how she missed her bronze medal by 0.01 seconds against Romania’s Christina Kojokaru. Her timing was 55.41 seconds and P.T.Usha took 55.42 seconds. She came to light in the Continental Cup, Croatia 2010. Her timing was excellent 1:59.17s in the 800m event. She was awarded Arjuna Award in the year 2014 by the government of India. This award has boosted her morals and the results are clear.

Vikas Gowda and Tintu Lukka has added feather in their caps. Their hard-work and sincere efforts are showing the results. This times Asian Athletics Championship is the second successful one for India. India holds the third position at the end of the Championship and India held second position in the 2007 Asian Athletic Championship in Amman at Jordan.

The contribution of Milkha Singh and P. T. Usha are remarkable indeed. But the new generation of Indian athletes are energetic and talented, willing to set new records in the history of Indian athletics.