Shirse wins gold but misses Paris target

Deepankar Sharda

Panchkula, June 30

With the words ‘last dance’ written with a pen on his left wrist, national record holder Tejas Shirse came pumped for his race on the concluding day of the 63rd National Inter State Senior Athletics Championships. The 22-year-old from Maharashtra won the 110m hurdles gold but to his disappointment he couldn’t better his record, finishing in 13.54 seconds.

Earlier this year, Shirse clocked 13.41 to break the national record at the Motonet GP — a World Athletics Continental Tour — in Finland. He erased Siddhanth Thingalaya’s mark of 13.48 but failed to achieve the Paris Olympics qualification mark of 13.27. Today, Shirse was aiming to not only better his record but also confirm his ticket to Paris. “It was like a final performance (for the Olympics). I failed to give my best. It (the words on the wrist) was just to motivate myself,” said Shirse.

Despite bagging the gold medal, he sat alone for a few minutes after the race.

Seven months back, he was not evening thinking of qualifying for the Olympics. “I couldn’t qualify for the Asian Games. While I was training at a gym, I watched the Asian Games event (110m hurdle) on the television. I was totally blank,” he said. “I dropped by my coach’s office and told him that I can qualify for the Olympics. We started working on it and surely it was a turning point. Thereafter, Finland happened and I was lucky to have some space to train aboard,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Indian mixed 4x400m relay team failed in its bid to qualify for the Olympics despite setting a national record as it missed the target time by one second. The team clocked 3:12.87, breaking the previous record of 3:14.12.