Nur Mohammed Hasan Qualifies in Steeplechase, a Horse Racing Event in the Asian Championships

Nur belonging to a farming family makes it to the Asian Championships next to Avinash Sable in the Steeplechase sport, which includes the race of horses.

Written by: Arjita Gupta

Edited by: Krutarth Ghosalkar

Last Updated: 2023-05-17 09:54:01

Nur’s family in Mau district was into local horse racing for several years. Being from a farming background, he was given control of his first foal when Nur turned 10 years old. Nur Mohammed Hasan's only objective, when he started his athletic training, was to join the military. The 3000m steeplechaser acknowledges that he never had a strong interest in athletics. But at the age of 16, he won the junior medal for the first time, and then everything changed. Nur said that he simply enlisted after seeing boys in his village preparing for the military.

His initial goal was just to find a stable job to provide for my family, but as soon as I began to see results, my perspective shifted and I became more optimistic. The athlete from Uttar Pradesh recorded his best career performance, clocking 8:30.56s on Tuesday in the Ranchi Federation Cup. The performance was better, over 10 seconds faster than the qualifier for the Asian Championship. The Athletic Federation of India has set it as a standard.

Avinash Sable, currently undergoing instruction in the United States, currently holds the first slot on India's all-time record thanks to the wiry 21-year-old's Fed Cup timing. Nur was somewhat unhappy that he did not record a faster time, despite the fact that he won the gold, his lifetime best. He had always been thin, and only light-weight persons are employed to train young horses at first. He recalls sitting on one the first time, and then Nur punched into the air.

Nur was already going over North India racing with his family's horse for monetary prizes before he started competing in athletics at the age of 14. He affirmed, that he is still really excellent at it. He began running for long distances, but his sports hostel coach encouraged him to give steeplechase a shot. Nur said that at first, he was pretty afraid. When you run into a hurdle, it will fall, but in a steeplechase, you risk breaking your bones if you run into the barrier.

He did fall down the first few times and even wounded himself. Nur even pointed to a scar, which still bears a mark on his left thigh. The lack of strong opponents to drive him was one of Sable's main grievances while training in India. The domestic steeplechase can raise its standards if Nur lowers his timings over the next few years, although being still quite a distance behind the consistently improving Sable. In 2018, when he was a junior athlete and first faced up against Sable, Nur was impressed by his talent.

I aspire to keep time like him. A significant burden has been eased off of Nur's shoulders by his air force employment, which the young lad obtained thanks to his athletic accomplishments. He vividly recalls the day when he had to endure hours of standing time while traveling in unreserved train cars to compete in junior-level contests. Today, he will fly home, but he could not even purchase a ticket in the first-class section at some point in time.

He used to get questions from coaches about his legs swelling up before competitions. They were unaware that he frequently spent more than six hours standing in a fully stacked train to get to the competition site. A day after defeating seasoned competitors such as medallists at the Asian Games - Mohammed Anas and Arokia Rajiv in the preliminary rounds, quarter-miler Rajesh Ramesh (his career best) ran 45.75 seconds to take the gold by a narrow margin over Mohammed Ajmal, who finished second with a time of 45.85 seconds.

Ramesh, 24, who was an at all times ticket examiner in 2000 in Trichy, was taken aback by his timing. He stated after the race that he was confident about his performance but did not think running in the 45.75 range. He had expected to finish in the 45.90s. On the second day of the Fed Cup, there was a lot of common off the field. Aishwarya Kailash Mishra claimed gold in the 400m event with a time of 52.57s. Priya Mohan, who came in second, appealed for a lane infringement, and that was ultimately accepted after careful review.

As a result of Priya's 53.40-second gold upgrade, Mishra did not qualify. There was some uproar as the photo finish machine did not record the timings during the men's 100m. For over an hour, Amiya Kumar Mallick, who finished in 10.31 seconds, was declared the winner.