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Out there on the clay-red tracks inside the confines of the Khalifa Stadium, under the blaze of the flooding lights, few could comprehend or anticipate the history that was about to unfold in a matter of few seconds when the Women's 800 meter finals began on Day 2 of the 23rd Asian Athletics Championships. The Championships, needless to say, are a stepping stone and ticket provider to the World Championships scheduled to be held in the months of September-October in Doha, Qatar.
India bagged 17 medals to finish fourth on the table but it was Gomathi Marimuthu who really stole the show when she surpassed well-decorated athletes in her field as she seized the elusive gold medal for the country in a breathtaking matter of 2 minutes and 2.70 seconds.
Few could have suspected that the farmer's daughter from the little village of Mudikandam, near Tiruchirapalli in Tamil Nadu, who was stretching on the tracks, clad in a white jersey with the placard '194' stuck on it, was capable enough to clinch a gold medal for India in the final moments of her 800 meter race.
The 30-year-old Gomathi Marimuthu, a graduate of the Holy Cross College, Tiruchirapally, was 20 when she made a late arrival into the world of track and field athletics. Having had her hard-working and humble farmer parents, who would toil day in and day out on acres of rural fields, support her journey, Gomathi was able to dream and achieve this phenomenal success.
Things transformed overnight for the South Indian runner as she conquered the track by pulling off a very strategic win against some of the best in the game. Her competitors were no ordinary runners and included China’s Asian champion Wang Chunyu and Kazakhstan’s former two-time Asiad winner Margarita Mukasheva.
These extremely well trained and experienced athletes were left gaping in breathless wonder as Gomathi revved up her engines and flew past them to the finish line in an extremely dramatic display of events. Lagging behind five runners for most of the race, Gomathi showed cool composure and technique as she conserved the onset of lactic energy and saved it for the final dash towards the gold medal, leaving behind Chunyu and Mukasheva.
Gomathi's life has not been the easiest. She lost her father to colon cancer and her coach, Ramakrishnan Gandhi expired suddenly in 2016, leaving her alone, except for the firm support of her gritty mother and friends. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Gomathi's run for gold was a similar spectacle. Shooting out of nowhere, with a keen focus in her eyes and a hard resolve, Gomathi Marimuthu ran for her life and ensured that she had that last laugh after crossing the finish line and in the process, got reborn as an intelligent athlete with sheer fire in her feet. It is a kind of fire that is cool, calm and even unassuming but is raging all the same and come the moment, can steal the golden moment of glory, till the passion stays ignited in her heart and mind.
Here's the clip of her creating history:
