Not at his best, but Dattu Bhokanal finishes as the best, edging rival Swarn Singh

Dattu Bhokanal (left) clocked 7:06.29 to top the grid. Swarn Singh (right) finished 15 seconds later.

It wasn’t the best of timings (Dattu Bhokanal clocked 7:06.29 and Swarn Singh huffed and puffed in 15 seconds later), nor a particularly climactic finish. But the excitement generated by the face-off between two of India’s leading rowers lit up a day at the Army Rowing Node in Pune, satiating curiosity within the uniform fraternity about who was better at the Rowing Nationals.

Sport, fundamentally, pits two opponents against each other, and sometimes neither the past—the two are India’s last two Olympians in the sport, nor the future—both are likely to be in the camp for next year’s Asian Games, has a particular bearing on the race on view. This was about two army men pitting their strength and endurance against each other. And the crowd had a jolly good time, calling the race of what they dubbed the ‘chela’ and ‘ustaad.’

As such only a year separates them in age – though Swarn is now a Subedar and Dattu a Havaldar, and both are affable towards the other. But for the chirping crowd in the grand-stand, it was a perfect race to speculate, lay wagers on and let loose their refrains. So before the last 500m was raced and the rowers came into view, with a giant LED screen beaming slow-mo images, the chatter started: “Guru guru hota hai, aur chela, chela.” Or, jab ghoda puraana ho jaata hai, toh naya ghoda doudne lagta hai. As the leads were traded, the most convenient, clichéd Hindi sayings were summoned to write a complete tale out of this 7minutes plus some, race.

Neck and neck

So, here’s what happened, the two went neck and neck swapping leads till the halfway mark, but it was at 500 that Swarn kicked off his sprint. Some would say it was a tad early, and he died out as the finish approached, as Dattu kept a steady pace to finish comfortably ahead in the head-on battle. But it was at 250, that Swarn really began fading out— a little dismayingly, like air going out of a balloon. A goodish tail-wind had raised hopes of better timings, but in the end the younger, and relatively fitter Dattu prevailed against the 2012 Olympian. Both spoke of bodies not ideally tuned for the big race, later, to explain the tame end.

The semifinals had been a humdinger— a narrow margin. But the crowds should have known that finals can be anti-climatic. As it turned out, Swarn had suffered from chills and fever last night, and spoke of the limits of the human body. “I rowed to my capacity today, I don’t think I could’ve gone faster given I wasn’t feeling too well last night,” he would say.

MP’s Saleem Khan came in at 7:26.04, closer in time to Swarn, which pointed to just how much the Punjab lad representing Services here, had miscalculated his last kick and lost power. Dattu meantime rowed a textbook race—spurting at the right juncture, though he didn’t need the final effort with Swarn falling back.

Too much rest

Happy and relieved with the gold, he wasn’t too chuffed and was aware he’d done just enough to hold onto his reputation as India’s best sculler of the moment. “Actually, I made a huge mistake by resting too much after the Olympics. I should’ve started earlier, but I didn’t start training early enough. So today, we were both experienced and rowed to our capacity, but I realised my rest had caused me problems at the Nationals,” he would say.

He had in fact been away for family reasons, but the body wasn’t kind or compassionate towards him, as the first big race after the Olympics showed him how much harder he needed to work to be in top shape again. Swarn returning from his only rehab and recovery from back problems, operated at about 70 percent of his erstwhile proficiency. Someone might have uncharitably called him an ageing warhorse, but he sure is keeping the younger one on his trotting toes. The national camp at Chennai including a recovery period built into the camp, should do them good after they’re done with the Sprints two days from now.