Author: V Shoba
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: December 6, 2010
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/olympian-passes-baton-to-son-and-11-others/720830/0
Introduction: Sujith has genes of his father,
also an Asian Games medalist, Mercy says; "if only he trained harder"
Sujith Kuttan looks every bit the diffident
teen, trailing behind his mother as she walks away from the track events in
progress at Sri Kanteerava Stadium in Bangalore, the venue of the 26th National
Junior Athletics Championship.
But as appearances go, Sujith's is quite deceptive.
On the second day of the meet, the 18-year-old finished first in the under-18
boys' 100 m category, besting the meet record with his 10.65-second sprint,
a head and shoulders above the competition.
"He is very shy. And he's lazy. He doesn't
practise all that regularly, yet he manages to do well. With some work, he
can soon hope to breast the tape at 10.2 seconds," says Mercy Kuttan
née Mathew, a former Olympian who now runs the Mercy Kuttan Athletics
Academy in Kochi with her husband Murali Kuttan, a fellow Asian Games medallist.
"People say it's the genes. We were the
first Indian couple to win individual medals at the Asian Games. Sujith has
inherited his father's excellent running movements, as well as his moodiness,"
she says.
In a black track suit, hands buried in his
pockets, Sujith says he is serious about athletics - it is as much a legacy
as an abiding passion. "I started with high jump in Class IX, then switched
to 100 m. In a couple of years, I hope to transition to 400 m. I want to be
a perfect athlete," he says.
The 400 m event has long been a favourite
with Indian athletes hoping to strike gold internationally. Mercy, a long
jumper who bagged the silver at the 1982 Asian Games, switched to 400 m late
in her career - beating, along the way, athletes like Ashwini Nachappa, Shiny
Wilson, Vandana Shanbhag and Vandana Rao - in the hope of representing India
at the Olympics. She could only go as far as the second round in the 1988
Olympics in Seoul, but she hopes her students will bring India the medal she
couldn't.
"We hope Sujith can win a medal at the
2014 Asian Games. He is definitely capable of it, he just has to train harder.
My husband is an NIS-certified coach, he knows how to train students. We started
the academy last year, and already, two of our girls have won medals at this
meet - Alga Vinni James won first place in the under-18 long jump and Olivia
Annmaria Thomas won second place and set a national record in the under-14
600 m event," she says.
Having just recovered from a longstanding
back injury, Mercy doesn't accompany her students on their runs. But she makes
sure to cook fish curry for Sujith, who, she says, is a poor eater.
"In Class IX, we sent him off to study
at the Labour India Public School in Kottayam for two years so he could learn
to work on his sport without us watching over him all the time. Now he's been
improving steadily. He is good at almost everything - high jump, long jump,
sprint, hurdling," she says, a twinge of anxiety in her eyes.
"You can't push children too much these
days. In my prime, I was extremely focussed. When my elder son Suraj, who
is 24 and pursuing his MBA in Bangalore, was a baby, I would practise for
six-seven hours a day - I was perhaps the first Indian mother to go to the
Olympics," she says.
Her eyes wander as she lingers on that single
episode in 1980 when she lost her focus. She was still a long-jumper when,
at the selection camp for the 1980 Moscow Olympics, she met Murali, a 400
m runner, and fell in love. "I was 18 and in top form. Looking back,
I know I could have made the qualifying round but I was in love and I was
distracted," she says.
She doesn't regret any of it, though. The
couple got married the next year and it was only then that her sports career
really took off and went strong through the '80s, till she decided to throw
in the towel in 1990, disgruntled by a delayed Arjuna Award.
"I could have carried on for another
four years, but it's alright. I worked for Tata Steel in Jamshedpur and so
did my husband. We decided to pass on our skills to the next generation, so
we opted to retire and settled down in Kochi in 1995. We now have 12 students
training in our academy, and have them under an eight-year plan to make the
best of their talent," she says.
It's time for Sujith to join the Kerala team
in relay practice, but he's reluctant. "He has to be coaxed into his
6 am drill, but sports is a way of life and the only one we know," Mercy
says.
