Olympian passes baton to son,and 11 others

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,Sujiths 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 hes lazy. He doesnt 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 its the genes. We were the first Indian couple to win individual medals at the Asian Games. Sujith has inherited his fathers 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 couldnt. 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 doesnt 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 hes 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 cant 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 doesnt 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 its 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.Its time for Sujith to join the Kerala team in relay practice,but hes 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.