Neighbour’s hand in Johnson success story
NEWDELHI: At 16, Jinson Johnson was an average runner. He wouldn’t have blossomed into an elegant middle-distance runner had he not met coach KM Peter, an ex-university athlete, in 2008.
On Thursday, the runner from Kozhikode district won the 1500m gold after finishing second in the 800m. Johnson, 27, has said he loved sport and often ran and trained on the road. But he wasn’t good enough to win medals in district meets. “One day, my neighbour (Peter) called me and said he wanted to help me get better at sport. After some hesitation, I agreed. It was turning point of my career,” he said before leaving for Jakarta.
It was the start of a beautiful relationship. Within six months, Johnson became Kerala’s 800m junior champion. “A good training programme made all the difference. Had Peter not helped me, I wouldn’t have reached international level,” he said.
The result also gave Johnson entry into the state sports council hostel in Kottayam. Peter also played a crucial role in pursuing Johnson to join the Army, in the sports quota in 2009. “There were better runners than me in the Army but I made the most of the good facilities,” he said.
In 2010, Johnson became the 800m junior national champion. But the real breakthrough came in 2015 when he got an opportunity to compete in the Asian Athletics championships in Wuhan, China. On his international debut, he won silver in the 800m.
“It made me believe I could do something at the world level,” said Johnson. The belief got stronger when he did well in Asian Grand Prix events in the same year.
A first round exit at 2016 Rio Olympics made him more determined. But injury hampered his prospect in 2017 and Johnson could only win the 800m bronze in the Asian Championships in Bhubaneswar. He didn’t lose hope and didn’t rush into highintensity training. Ealier this year, Johnson finished fifth in the 1500m with a national record of 3:37.86 seconds in the Commonwealth Games.
Despite breaking Sriram Singh’s 800m national record at the inter-state athletics championships in June, Johnson said he wanted to focus on the 1500m.