After new Asian record at Tokyo, sprinter Noah Nirmal Tom turns attention to big year ahead

Express News Service

KOCHI: Noah Nirmal Tom is on a well deserved break right now after everything that unfolded over the past two years.

The quarter-miler from Kerala, who was part of the Indian men’s 4x400m relay team that set a new Asian record at the recently concluded Tokyo Olympics, is enjoying time with his family and friends, but has already set sights on the World Athletics Championship, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games, all of which are coming up in 2022.

The relay team had clocked a timing of 3:00.25s in Tokyo but it wasn’t enough for them to qualify for the final. However, Noah is happy that they were able to put in such a performance even though they hadn’t participated in any international meets in the lead up to the Olympics due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Some events where the team was scheduled to participate got cancelled at the very last moment as many countries across Europe had put travel restrictions on India because of the number of cases that were being reported in the country at that time.  

“We can’t blame anybody as the Covid-19 situation in the country was pretty severe and that complicated things. But it didn’t help our cause that we couldn’t get any international exposure prior to the Olympics. We were largely confined to the SAI centre in Patiala and just training amidst a lot of uncertainty. But this is a great team and we were always confident of putting on a good show. We were disappointed that we couldn’t make it to the final, but at least we managed to better our own timings and show our potential,” said the 26-year-old.

Noah admitted that it was a challenging phase over the last two-and-a-half years and it was important to rest before preparing for the upcoming events.

But he believes that their performance will give this team of Noah, Muhammed Anas Yahiya, Amoj Jacob and Arokia Rajiv a lot of confidence going forward.

“I think this is one of the best relay teams we’ve had. And our performance at the Games, despite all the challenges we faced gives us the belief that we can improve our timings even further. We need to cut all the small mistakes we make during races and I’m confident we can run below the three minute mark. That is the main target with such a big year coming up. We want to do well in the World Championships, Asian Games as well as the Commonwealth Games. It is time to look ahead,” he said.