How a better posture helped Amlan break nat’l mark
ASSAM’S AMLAN Borgohain broke the national record in the men’s 100 metres when he clocked 10.25 seconds at the Inter-railway athletics championships in Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh. The 24-year-old Amlan is now the country’s fastest in both the sprint events.
Earlier this year at the Federation Cup, he had clocked 20.52s to set a new national record in the men’s 200 metres.
The previous 100 metre record was held Amiya Kumar Malick with a time of 10.26. Amlan’s performance on Monday was a big improvement on his previous best time of 10.34 seconds.
Amlan’s personal coach James Hillier puts down his improved timing to the work put in over the past three months to improve his running posture, and maintaining it when he gets tired.
Sri Amlan Borgohain of N.F. Railway @RailMinIndia won the Gold medal in the 100m run in the 87 AIR Athletics championship being held at Raebareli. He also broke the National record clocking 10.25sec (the earlier National record was 10.26sec in 2016) #NationalSportsDay2022 pic.twitter.com/2mFvWZVRHe
— Northeast Frontier Railway (@RailNf) August 29, 2022
“He ran very well in training two weeks ago. His posture looked the best I had ever seen. So last week I tested him over 100m
Through timing gates and he ran extremely well. So I knew the national record was under threat. But didn’t want to say anything and jinx it,” coach Hillier, who trains Amlan at the Odisha Reliance Foundation High Performance Centre in Bhubaneshwar, said.
Amlan could run faster this year as his main targets are the National Games and the Open Nationals.
“Also this part of the season is still early. I have not peaked him for this Railways Nationals so him running this fast is a bonus.I will be aiming to peak him at National Games and Open Nationals. Also wanted to improve his max speed and his 100m time this year. That will also improve his 200m,” Hillier added.
The Athletics Federation of India will begin the process of ratifying the record once all the paper work, including photo finish details, are collected from the organisers.
Amlan started off being a footballer but his mother asked him to quit the sport because he was getting injured too often.
“My mom asked me to either switch to a different sport or quit entirely. Playing football wasn’t an option anymore. It was a tough decision to make,” Amlan had told this paper last year. Looking back, the fastest man in India picked the right sport.
