India’s Avinash Sable competes in the Men’s 3000m Steeplechase Round 1 athletics event at the 2024 Summer Olympics, in Paris, France, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024.
| Photo Credit: PTI
India’s Avinash Sable, with a fifth place finish in the qualifying heat of the men’s 3,000m steeplechase, qualified for the final with a timing of 8:15.43.
He is the first Indian Olympic track finalist since Lalita Babar in the women’s 3,000m steeplechase in 2016.
A year ago, Sable was in Budapest for the World Championships. Confident of making the final, he felt he should conserve energy for the big race.
He realised too late that he was getting boxed in with no space to break out even to vault the barrier or water jump. He tripped and did not qualify.
In the months that have passed, Sable’s repeated a mantra to whoever has asked him. “Dont’ try to be cute. Don’t think, you are going to make the final just because you run. Run every race as if it’s your last.’
That’s what he did here on Monday. Sable maintained his lead for the first lap. He’d pushed hard enough at the start that instead of being forced to run in a pack, he was in front of a thin line of runners. The pace Sable had forced at the start meant that his timing was faster that Olympic champion Soufianne Al Bakalli and Olympic silver medallist Lamecha Girima who topped their heats.
