Delhi’s Chanda puts behind Asiad disappointment to win 800m gold

Panaji, Nov 3: Delhi’s middle-distance runner KM Chanda was so upset at missing out on a medal at the Hangzhou Asian Games that she went into hibernation and didn’t even speak to her coach about what went wrong in China.
The 22-year-old then decided to participate in the 37th National Games here just to get out of the slumber and put the disappointment in China behind her. She did more than that, winning a silver medal in the 1500m event and then bagging the 800m gold with a time of 2:01.74s on Thursday night.
“I thought I would go outdoors and feel better. I’m just going through the routine and not pushing hard. I looked at the National Games as an opportunity to recover from a bad outing in China.
“I’m happy with my performance. I was disappointed to not win the gold in 1500 but I was confident in the 800m race and it showed in the performance,” she added.
But it is the disappointment at the Hangzhou Asian Games that still troubles Chanda.
She was considered one of the medal contenders in the women’s 800m event in Hangzhou. She had a personal and season best of 2:01.58 seconds. It was the fastest by an Indian female runner this year. But things didn’t go according to plan and it affected her mentally. She then locked herself in the room for over a fortnight.
Recalling her Hangzhou Asian Games experience, Chanda said as the race progressed she wasn’t able to adjust to rough tactics of middle-distance races and finished outside the medal bracket. (IANS)