Indian sprinter Animesh Kujur makes Diamond League history

Animesh Kujur made Diamond League history on Friday when he became the first Indian sprinter to race on the circuit, finishing fourth in an invitational 200m won by Australian Gout Gout.

Inspired by Jamaican legend Usain Bolt, Kujur had told AFP on Thursday of his delight of bumping into Olympic 100 and 200m champions Noah Lyles and Letsile Tebogo at lunch, enjoying a selfie with the duo as reality hit that he is now rubbing shoulders with the current sprinting elite.

Kujur did not, however, race against the vaunted pair, instead featuring in the under-23 200m on an evening loaded with top stars of track and field.

The favourite for the Indian's race was none other than widely-touted Australian teen prodigy Gout Gout, often compared to a younger Bolt but also finding his feet among the big boys.

He duly won in 20.10 seconds, with Kujur clocking 20.55sec in fourth.

"I'm disappointed with my time, but really pleased to have run here and proud to have been India's first sprinter at a Diamond League," Kujur told AFP.

His coach Martin Owens added: "A 1.9m/s headwind did not help and lane eight. No excuses though, it's a really proud moment for Animesh and the Indian sprinters on their journey to international level."

Kujur has enjoyed a mean streak of form coming into Monaco, setting national records of 10.18 and 20.27sec in the 100 and 200m respectively.

The 22-year-old, born in a tribal village in Chhattisgarh, a landlocked state in central India, put his improved form down to a two-week camp in Switzerland.

There he worked on body mechanics and his start out of the blocks with Owens, who is based in the eastern state of Odisha, and Swiss-based bobsleigh performance coach Chris Woolley.

"Because of that, my time improved so much," he said, adding that time away from merely domestic competition was also a game changer.

"It's a very nice thing that I'm competing with athletes who are faster than me. Whenever I compete with faster athletes, my times improve."

Owens is head coach of the high performance centre in Odisha set up by the Reliance Foundation in 2019 to provide impetus to various philanthropic initiatives of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, the retail-to-refining giant led by Asia's richest man Mukesh Ambani and India's most valuable company by market capitalisation.

Ambani's wife Nita, a member of the International Olympic Committee since 2016, heads up the foundation, which helps fund invaluable European circuit experience for the likes of Kujur.

"It's a massive step up for him," Englishman Owens told AFP. "In my three years in the job, I see people that just want to be better.

"They don't want to be the best in India, they want to be competing on a world stage."

Kujur faces a tough jump to make the 20.16sec qualifying mark for the world championships in Tokyo in September, but he was in confident mood.

"What I'm feeling now is I'm going to crack that time," he said. "I'm feeling like 20.10 I'm going to run.

"I'll get more confidence from the bigger competitors I'm up against. They'll bring me energy.

"Big athletes means international medallists so I'm feeling happy that I'm going to compete with them."

Speaking of Lyles and Tebogo, Kujur said: "I saw them in the dining hall. I used to see them on Instagram only, not in reality.

"So when I saw them for the first time in my life, I went and I took a photo with them.

"They're very nice. They said, 'Yeah, bro, come and let's take a photo'. I felt like, oh wow, that I am on a bigger stage now. I have to act like a pro athlete."

With India mulling a bid for the 2036 Summer Olympics, Owens was in no doubt a sprint revolution is under way in India, much in the same way the javelin took off after Neeraj Chopra was crowned Olympic champion in Tokyo, followed up by world gold in 2023 and an Olympic silver in Paris.

"We've got a group of young sprinters that are all around about the same standard and they're just going to keep pushing each other," he said, emphasising the importance of the 4x100m relay for further exposure.

"They've already broken the national record this year.

"They've just got to believe that the relay is an important entrance into it and then they can get to rub shoulders with Noah Lyles, Karsten Warholm and Shericka Jackson.

"They'll train harder, smarter, get motivated and driven, and get some belief."

Agence France-Presse