Exclusive! Avinash Sable made gruelling steeplechase popular in India, other runners yet to learn from his exploit

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Maharashtra's 30 years old Asian and Commonwealth Games medalists, Avinash Sable, made 3000m steeplechase popular but other leading distance runners have yet to learn from his exploits. The performance of top athletes at the 38th Uttarakhand National Games, season's first outdoor competition, suggest that.

"Lack of collective training and consistency was a major reason for not producing good quality steeplechase runners in India," Amrish Kumar, former national athletics coach said. Sable was the lone Indian runner to have qualified for 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games as well as 2024 Paris Olympic Games.

At the just concluded athletics competition of the 38th Uttarakhand National Games, men's 3000m steeplechase winner Sumit Kumar representing Services Sports Control Board (SSCB) clocked 8:46.26 seconds, far slower than Sable's personal best and national record of 8:09.91 clocked at 2024 Paris Diamond League in France.

Sable first came to prominence in the 2018 season when he broke a long-standing national record of 8:30.88 set by Gopal Saini in 1981. Since then Sable has pruned down his own national record at regular intervals.

"It takes more than four to five years to build a good foundation. Without a solid training background over a long period of time it's not possible to break the 8:30 minutes barrier," Kumar asserted.

Kumar, who was associated with Sable, India's versatile distance runner, from 2016 till 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games revealed, a good bunch of distance runners trained together and Sable was among them. "Group training was one of the key factors for Sable's consistent performance graph at the international level," Kumar added.

Kumar said Services runner Shankar Lal Swami of Services was among the group and has potential to clock 8:15, but he needs to be mentally strong. "He (Swami) was close to Sable in 2018, but then drifted away which indicates that something was wrong somewhere," the former national athletics coach explained.

Swami's personal best of 8:32.01 was clocked in 2022. Since then he hasn't come close to his personal best. In fact, Swami was ahead of Sable in June 2018 but finished a disappointing eighth at the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games.

Swami has been struggling with niggle. He missed out on the delayed Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games held in China in 2023. "There has been an issue of injuries for the past two years, which was why I couldn't come to my personal best," Swami admitted after finishing third at the Uttarakhand National Games. His bronze medal winning time was 8:49.39.

Swami was hopeful of a good performance in April at the Senior National Federation Cup in Kerala. "National Games were scheduled too early in February. By April I should be able to do better," Swami added.

Gruelling steeplechase has seven water jumps and 28 barriers spread over a distance of 3,000m. Runners from Services generally dominate the event as it's very demanding. However, recently some young runners from different walks of life have taken up the event.

Uttar Pradesh's promising junior Sharuk Khan was one of them who has switched from middle distance events to 3000m steeplechase. "It will be interesting to watch his transition to senior level," Kumar said. Khan holds the U20 national record of 8:42.06, a personal best. But he finished fourth at the National Games.

Also top runners at the National Games didn't display good technique to clear either water jumps or hurdles. Karanvir Singh, army's steeplechase coach based out of Pune in Maharashtra said athletes are training hard but lack good technique to negotiate water jumps and hurdles.

"Athletes are training hard but don't focus on improving their skills to smoothly clear water jumps and barriers during the demanding race," the army coach said.