Rio Olympics: Tintu Luka commits tactical blunder, crashes out

Rio de Janeiro: Four years ago in London Olympics, Tintu Luka ran ahead of the field before fizzling out. The end was no different in Rio Olympics as she finished a dismal 29th in the Women’s 800m race at the Olympic Stadium. PT Usha’s protege Luka seemingly ran much faster to log her season’s best time of 2 minutes 00.58 seconds, but that was not enough to guarantee her a place in the 24 semifinalists. The 27-year-old Tintu led the field till around 600m before fading on the final stretch at the global stage. The Indian owns the national record of 1:59.17 set in 2010, a timing that would have propelled her into the semifinals. With top two finishers of eight Heats and next 8 fastest making it to the semifinals, Tintu was left languishing at 29th position in a field of 64 runners in this much watched race. The 2015 World Championships silver medallist Melissa Bishop of Canada topped the heats in 1:58.39, followed by reigning world champion Marina Arzamasova (1:58.44) of Belarus and Habitum Alemu (1:58.99) of Ethiopia. With Luka's flop show, India's disappointment in track and field events continued. Only Lalita Babar has been able to make it to the final round of the women's steeplechase event. Luka's strategy of taking early lead did not look impressive in the second lap, as she began to slow down and other athletes such as Buchel and Wambui came from behind and easily overtook her with around 200m to go. With the last 100m remaining, other runners also got past her, and Luka finished a disappointing sixth Luka has rarely done well at the global stage since she made it to the senior level in 2009. She has done well only at the continental level, having won a bronze and a silver medal in the 2010 and 2014 Asian Games respectively. Her best performance in either Commonwealth Games or Olympics, where athletics got to see some top participants, has been the sixth-place finish in the 2010 Delhi CWG. Luka was 15th at the semifinal stage in the 2011 World Championships, 11th at the semifinal stage in the 2012 London Olympics, 15th in the heats in the 2013 World Championships, 11th at the semifinal stage at the 2014 Commonwealth Games and 19th in the heats in the 2015 World Championships.