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What's the story?
In an interesting turn of events, Kambala jockey Nishant Shetty has broken Srinivas Gowda's record by running 143m in just 13.68 seconds which equates to 100m in 9.51 seconds.
The background
Kambala Jockey Srinivas Gowda has been the talk of the town for the past couple of days after running 145m in 13.62 seconds. The 28-year-old had finished 100m of the 145m in just 9.55 seconds.
Social media has been in a frenzy ever since Gowda's stellar run and many even called him 'India's Usain Bolt.'
However, Indian Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju had remarked that 'people write anything on Social Media these days.' He had even invited Gowda to attend an official trial for what it's worth.
The heart of the matter
It looks like Kiren Rijiju will also need to invite another Kambala runner to an official trial. Nishant Shetty, another Kambala Jockey, has broken Gowda's record by running 143m in just 13.68 seconds. This means he covered 100m in just 9.51 seconds at the Soorya-Chandra Jodukare Kambala at Venoor.
Kambala is an annual buffalo race conducted in Karnataka. Last year, Rameshwar Gurjar, a 24-year-old farmer, also came into the limelight when a video of his surfaced on Twitter in which he reportedly covered 100m in 11 seconds.
After becoming a social media sensation, Gurjar was promptly invited to the Sports Authority of India (SAI) centre in Bhopal for a trial. With running spikes on, the youngster could only clock 12.9 seconds to finish last amongst the eight athletes in the race.
Recently, Gowda captured the attention of the masses by breaking the Kambala record, and it's now Nishant Shetty's turn to hog the limelight after his most recent effort.
There are only a select few Kambala jockeys who have breached the 100m mark in less than 10 seconds. These include Srinivas Gowda (9.55 secs), Iruvathur Anand (9.57 secs), and Akkeri Suresh Shetty (9.57 secs), with Nishant Shetty the most recent entrant on the list.
What's next?
Srinivas was invited to attend trials at an SAI centre following his exploits earlier this week and it remains to be seen how the officials from the Sports Ministry react to Nishant's feat.
