Indians eye Asian Games cut at Mumbai Marathon

Comeback man Gopi and 2020 Indian toppers Srinu and Sudha to lead the domestic charge

MUMBAI: For three years as an injury-plagued Thonakal Gopi didn’t participate in a major marathon, only one thought would keep him going: “Sab theek ho jayega aage. Bas, bhaagna hai wapas (Everything will be fine soon. I just have to compete again).”

That time has come now for the 2017 Asian Championships silver medallist. Gopi will be among the leading Indian elite runners at the Tata Mumbai Marathon on Sunday, his first major competitive marathon since the Doha World Championships in October 2019.

In March that year, Gopi had also clocked his personal best of 2:13:39 at Seoul Marathon. Anything close to that time and he will earn a spot at this year’s Hangzhou Asian Games with the qualification mark set at 2:15:00. It is the 34-year-old’s primary target this season but he admitted that the mind isn’t in sync with the body yet.

“My main target for this year is the Asian Games qualification,” Gopi said on Saturday. “But the long gap has brought down my confidence level. It will only return after I run a race, and hopefully that happens tomorrow (Sunday). I’m training at the same level as before now, but competition is different. And because I haven’t raced in three years, there’s a bit of self-doubt.”

There was none of that in 2019, a productive season that had Gopi aiming for higher peaks the next year. In March 2020, however, he underwent surgery for recurring pain in his knee. Slow recovery and a few other injury issues thereafter meant the competitive leap took a long time coming.

“It was a difficult experience. It was a sad phase for me, I suffered a lot mentally,” Gopi, who ran in Prayagraj last November to test himself, said. “Now I want to run like before again.”

Also hoping for that will be Srinu Bugatha, who was the fastest among Indian men and 13th overall in the 2020 edition (2:18:44). The Armyman has since improved on his personal best to 2:14:59 in New Delhi in 2021 and in last year’s Dhaka Marathon clocked 2:16:26. Srinu knows matching his personal best will take care of the Asiad qualification but he’s desperate

(Delhi, 2021) The top Indian at the 2020 edition, 13th overall, finished with a time of

2:18:44.

(Seoul, 2019) Last ran the Mumbai

Marathon in 2019 and was

12th with a timing of

2:17:03. to tick off another major goal soon—the national record of 1978 by Shivnath Singh (2:12:00).

Husband, wife and marathon love

Bugatha will have for company his wife, Arati Patil. The duo got

(Delhi, 2019) The runner from Ladakh finished overall 14th in 2020 with a timing of 3:05:11. married on December 26, 2021 and on January 10, 2022 they ran the marathon in Dhaka together. That was, incidentally, Arati’s first full marathon, having competed in half marathons before.

“I told her, ‘aap bhi ek baar try karo (you try the marathon). So, we decided to both run there after our wedding. She did well,” Bugatha said of Arati’s fifthplace finish at 2:53:28.

The women’s field also has Sudha Singh, eyeing another best Indian finish after 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2020 (2:45:30).

ANSHUMAN POYREKAR/HT (From left) T Gopi, Jigmet Dolma, Sudha Singh and Srinu Bugatha pose in front of CSMT on Saturday.