Paris Olympics 2024: Avinash Sable fails to light up the stage on the biggest night of his life

It’s been a turbulent few days for Indian athletes at the Paris Olympics, with the joy of winning three medals last week slowly fading away following a series of heartbreaks. India had arrived in the French capital hoping to touch a double-digit medal haul for the first time at the Olympics after winning seven of them in Tokyo.

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However, with just three days left in the Paris Games and India’s medal count still stuck at three – all of them coming from shooting — India’s chances of eclipsing their London 2012 tally of six suddenly looks difficult, though certainly not impossible.

Avinash Sable wasn’t exactly a favourite for a medal in the men’s 3000m steeplechase event as Mirabai Chanu was in weightlifting or Satwiksairaj Rankireddy-Chirag Shetty were in badminton, none of whom were able to secure a podium finish in the end.

Sable’s event, after all, is among the several long-distance races dominated by East African athletes. And men’s 3000m steeplechase is an event where Kenyans are considered royalty, the nation having won 11 gold medals in total including nine on the trot from 1984 to 2016 and completing a podium sweep in Barcelona 1992 and Athens 2004.

Only recently was Morocco’s Soufiane El Bakkali able to challenge Kenya’s monopoly by winning gold in Tokyo 2020, and successfully defending his Olympic title during Wednesday’s final with USA’s Kenneth Rooks beating Kenya’s Abraham Kibiwot to the silver.

Though India have not been winning as many medals as they would have hoped, the Paris Olympics have witnessed a series of firsts by Indian athletes. And among those was Sable becoming the first from his country to qualify for the men’s 3000m steeplechase final with a timing of 8:15.43 that helped him finish fifth in the qualification round.

In a country that has traditionally struggled in track events, where athletics’ popularlity only skyrocketed after Neeraj Chopra’s historic gold at the Tokyo Olympics, reaching an Olympic final certainly is an achievement and something of a takeaway.

But for the 29-year-old from Beed, Maharashtra, a subedar with the Mahar Regiment of the Indian Army, reaching the final alone would not have been the end of his Paris 2024 campaign. Sable would have also hoped to leave a lasting impact, much like shuttler Lakshya Sen did in the men’s singles campaign despite returning empty-handed.

Sable, after all, is the reigning Asian Games champion in the event and had also won silver at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, beating Kenya’s Amos Serem by five full seconds and was a few milliseconds behind Kibiwot, who collected bronze in Paris on Wednesday.

And during the qualification, he had finished a couple of seconds quicker than El Bakkali and nine seconds quicker than Rooks.

It was also in the ‘City of Light’ where Sable had registered his best timing of 8:09.94 – a national record — during the Diamond League this year. Banking on his Paris experience to produce the performance of a lifetime and try and get as close to the top three or five, even if the prospect of a medal looked improbable.

Wednesday’s final, however, turned out to be very different from what Sable along with the rest of the Indian athletics contingent and a billion-plus audience watching back home would have hoped for.

Sable, also a national record-holder in men’s 5000m, was off the blocks in style and was leading the pack for a lap and a half. At the 1000-metre mark, Sable was placed fourth and a historic medal was still within reach.

Distance running however, is all about the managing one’s stamina and energy smartly over the course of the race and knowing when to go for the kill. And the importance of energy management is directly proportional to the distance covered in a race.

Thus in Sable’s case, one cannot help get the feeling that he might have peaked too early during the race, and subsequently found himself not only getting gassed up, but also getting pushed to the middle of the pack from where freeing oneself can become a tricky affair, especially in the closing stages of a race.

Sable eventually finished a disappointing 11th with a timing of 8:14.18 — nearly five seconds less than what he had managed in the Diamond League. One would have expected Sable to bring his ‘A’ game forward in the mother of all sporting events and at least better his own personal best — and in turn the national record.

Doing that would have given him a shot at finishing among the top five, which would have been a feat somewhat similar to gymnast Dipa Karmakar finishing fourth at the Rio Olympics — making a mark in the sport despite not winning a medal.

While his performance in Paris Games is certainly an improvement from that in Tokyo, where he had failed to make it past the heats, this result will likely sting him more.

There is, however, a silver lining from the disappointing result, with Sable’s timing earning him a direct qualification for next year’s World Championships in Tokyo. Having overcome the hurdle of reaching an Olympic final, it won’t be long before Sable turns his attention to the Worlds and deliver to his full potential at the highest level for once.

A Bombay Bong with an identity crisis. Passionately follow cricket. Hardcore fan of Team India, the Proteas and junk food. Self-proclaimed shutterbug. see more