Avinash Sable breaks 30-year-old 5000 metre record, Bahadur Prasad says wait to congratulate someone is over

Armyman Avinash Sable had broken Prasad’s 5,000 metres national record, clocking 13 minutes and 25.65 seconds in San Juan Capistrano, USA, finishing 12th in a high-quality field which included two Olympic medallists on Friday. For the former Asian Athletics Championship silver medallist, the race was all about the clock rather than a podium finish.

Sable, 27, from drought-prone Madhva village in Beed, Maharashtra, is well-known for erasing age-old records. The Tokyo Olympian has broken the 3,000-metre steeplechase record seven times. The first time his name entered the record books in this event, he erased Gopal Saini’s 37-year-old mark. He holds the national half marathon record too.

Friday’s run at The Sound Running meet was exceptional because it was only his second competitive race in 5,000 metres.

“I see him going faster and breaking more records. All these years, I wanted someone to go faster than me. It is not good for athletics in a country if a record stands for 30 years. I want to congratulate Sable and tell him to dream big. I think he is an exceptional athlete,” said Prasad, a  Railway Sports Officer posted in Varanasi.

The oldest athletics record in India is Shivnath Singh’s 1978 mark in the marathon, a road race.

Prasad, now 56, had broken Raj Kumar Ahlawat’s 10-year-old record when he clocked 13:29.70 in Birmingham in 1992. Like Sable, Prasad was also on a record-breaking spree. In less than three weeks in the UK, he rewrote three more national records — the 3,000 metres twice and the 1,500 metres.

Naib Subedar Avinash Sable. (Twitter/Southern Command Indian Army)

Sable’s growth in athletics has been extraordinary. Till about seven years ago, he was posted as a havildar with the Army in Siachen. From the frigid cold, he was transferred to a small cantonment in the desert town of Lalgarh Jattan, near the Pakistan border in Rajasthan. The boy who walked 12 kilometres, to get to school and back, got his lucky break when he was selected to join a training group for a cross-country race organised by the Army.

From a chance selection to becoming the country’s best track athlete with three national records in his name, Sable has made rapid strides. The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) wanted him to run both the 3,000 metres steeplechase and the 5,000 metres at the now-postponed Asian Games in China.

“We wanted to field him in the steeplechase and the 5,000 metres because he was a medal prospect,” chief national coach Radhakrishnan Nair said.

Aiming to bag podium finishes, Sable shifted to the high altitude Olympic training centre in Colorado Springs with India’s long distance coach Scott Simmons, a former head track coach of the US army.

#BreakingNews 🚨

Olympian & #TOPScheme 🏃‍♂️ #AvinashSable breaks 30-yr old long standing record of Bahadur Prasad (13:29.70/1992) in 5000m, setting a new #nationalrecord with a brilliant performance of 13:25.65 in Sound Running Track meet in San Juan Capistrano 🇺🇸 #Athletics
1/2 pic.twitter.com/vNxWGhi7mT

— SAI Media (@Media_SAI) May 7, 2022

One of the drawbacks of training in India was the lack of a strong group of runners who Sable could compete against. At the Federation Cup in March, he won his first-ever 5,000 metres race and achieved a meet record.

For someone who was used to dominating the track at home, Friday was a different experience. Tokyo Olympics gold medal winner in the 1,500 metres, Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway, won the race with a timing of 13:02.03s. Sable trailed during the race before finding his rhythm and finishing 12th out of 23, ahead of Olympic bronze medallist in the 1,500 metres, Josh Kerr.

Avinash Sable in action during the men’s 3000m steeplechase heats at the Tokyo Olympics. (Reuters)

Coach Simmons said Sable was not fully prepared for the race. “He was nervous and had second thoughts, because he did not have much time to train and acclimatise to the conditions. But he did well, given the (lack) of preparation. This race was important for him. He defeated the Olympic bronze medallist, which is huge. He will get a lot more confident now,” he said.

Prasad is hoping to hear more good news about Sable soon. “I held multiple records at one time and now I have none. It shows Indian athletes are making progress,” he said.