The protégé of India’s finest female athlete P.T Usha, Tintu Luka is a two time Asiad medallist and a national record holder in 800 metres who will represent India at the 2016 Rio Olympics. The 27-year-old athlete from Kannaur, Kerala, will be riding high on her performance in the Josef Odlozil Memorial Athletics Meet in Prague, where she bagged silver and also ran her season’s best. The Rio-bound athlete holds the national record of 1:59.17, which she achieved way back in 2010. Luka has been training under P.T Usha in the Usha school of Athletics since 2002. She rose to prominence after clocking 1:59:17 in the 800m event to break Shiny Wilson’s 15-year-old record at the Continental Cup in Croatia. She also finished third to win a bronze medal in the 800m event at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, China and gave an encore of her performance by winning another bronze medal at the Asian Championships in Japan the next year.
