Though Indian athletes were not able to win any medal at the 2015 IAAF World Athletics Championships in Beijing, they were able to create two national records, two personal bests and three season bests. This year's results were one of the best by them in comparison with the last three world championships. In fact India has so far won only one medal in the world athletics championships, Anju Bobby George won bronze in long jump in 2003.
Record-breakers
The rise of Lalita Babar in the last few years has been quite meteoric. The 26-year-old long distance runner came into prominence with a bronze-winning performance in 3000m steeplechase at the 2014 Asian Games, where she broke the national record with a time of 9 minutes and 35.37 seconds. She bettered her own record again in June this year, when she clocked 9:34.13 to win the Asian Championships gold in Wuhan (China). In Beijing too she did not disappoint and raced into the final of the steeplechase event - the first Indian to reach a track event final - with another national record time of 9:27.86. Even though she finished a disappointing eighth, after leading the pack almost till the last lap, it was another sub-9:30 (9:29.64) performances from the gutsy Lalita.
Another Indian national record was set when Jaisha Orchatteri broke her own record in the women's marathon as she crossed the finish line in 2:34:43. The 32-year-old marathoner had set the national record (2:37:29) early this year at the Mumbai Marathon. Jaisha also finished a creditable 18th ahead of her compatriot Sudha Singh, who clinched in 19th spot with a personal best time of 2:35:35. In the process the duo also booked their tickets to the 2016 Rio Games.
The finalists
Along with Babar, two more Indian athletes qualified for the final of their respective events - Vikas Gowda in discus throw and Inderjeet Singh in the shot put, though both failed to live up to expectations in the finals.
Inderjeet, who won multiple international gold medals in 2015 including the Asian title, qualified for the medal round at eight position with a throw of 20.45m in the preliminaries, but finished 11th with a disappointing 19.52m in the finals. He still became the first Indian shot putter to reach the final of the world championships, fourth after Anju, Gowda and Lalita.
Similarly, Gowda produced a below par 62.24m in his third final at worlds and finished 9th after qualifying for the round at seventh with a 63.86m. The Asian and CWG champion was seventh twice in his previous two finals in 2013 (Moscow) and 2011 (Daegu) world championships.
Next best
A few other athletes produced their personal or season bests in the meet. Though they were not good enough for them to progress in the next round, they were commendable performances.
Walkers Sandeep Kumar and Manish Singh, who competed in the men's 50km walk, produced their season best and personal best times to finished 26th and 27th respectively. Middle-distance runner Tintu Luka ran a season best 2:00.95 in her 800m event but finished seventh in the heats and failed to go further. Luka, along with the trio of Jishna Mathew, M R Poovamma and Debashree Majumdar, also produced a season best 3:29.08 in the 4x400m relay but came short again.