16-Jul-2008 191
At a time when Orissa is desperately searching for an athlete to stand up at the National level after ace woman hurdler Anuradha Biswal, sprinter Amiya Mallick has raised hope.
Mallick returned home today after bagging the 100 metre gold and 200 metre silver in boys under-18 age category of the 4th Children of Asia Games at Yakutia, Russia, last week. Unlike other sportspersons, Mallick is not willing to take credit about his achievements. Instead, he rues that he could not equal or better his personal best 100 metre timing of 10.8 seconds (he clocked 11.2 seconds) at the Yakutia Games. "I am not happy with my timing. It is like getting a first class in Board examination with 65 per cent marks," quipped the Plus Two first year commerce student of DAV Public School, Chandrasekharpur.
On the contrary, the local lad feels satisfied that he could beat his personal best timing of 21.91 seconds in the 200 metre event. It does not matter that the timing of 21.73 seconds fetched him the silver medal. Mallick could have bagged a double at Yakutia had the weather not been extremely cold. "The temperature was below 10 degree celsius and it was raining too. There was little time to recover as the 200 metre final was conducted just 20 minutes after the semifinal," he recalled.
It was not run, run and run for Mallick at Yakutia. He experienced a rare sight of no night there. "Night in Yakutia is similar to dusk here. No further darkness. It was therefore a problem to sleep there," revealed the tall and lithe Orissa athlete. This was the third international meet for 16-year-old Mallick, who earlier won a silver medal in 400x100m relay in under-20 category of the Junior Asian meet at Colombo in 2006 and finished sixth in under-16 boys 100m sprint event of the Junior Asian meet at Jakarta, Indonesia, last year.
Son of Arakhita and Pratima Mallick, Amiya first indicated his talent by emerging overall champion with three titles in the State School Athletic Meet at Balasore three years ago. Sprint titles in CBSE National meet, National School Games and junior National championships in the following years established him as one of the promising sprinters of the country.
Mallick next aims to win the under-19 sprint title at the Commonwealth Championship at Pune later this year. His ultimate goal is pinned on bagging a medal in 2012 Olympic Games. In order to transform his dreams into reality, what Mallick desperately requires is sponsorship. "I need to train in the USA or Jamaica. I need better equipment, coaching and exposure. Without sponsorship all these requirements can not be fulfilled," he explains.
Ambitious and forthright, Mallick does not hesitate to say that he would quit athletics if sponsorship is not made available to him soon. "I don``t want to take up athletics as a profession and end up earning Rs 10,000 a month as a clerk in railway or police. I am a good student. I will do MBA and I am sure I will get a corporate job worth Rs 40,000 a month," concluded Mallick, who was spotted groomed as a sprinter by government coach Nila Madhab Deo.
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