M Olimba Steffi, 2nd year MA student at PSGR Krishnammal College for Women bagged the gold medal at 63rd Inter State Senior National Athletics Championship held in Panchkula, Haryana from June 27 to June 30.
The youngster who participated in the individual 400-metre hurdles competition made her state and district proud by clocking 59.43 seconds. Olimba shared her experience of winning the gold medal at the national competition. She said, “This is quite an emotional win for me. This is my first medal in an individual competition at the national level. I hadn’t been competing actively in the last couple years due to various reasons. I couldn’t access the training facility at the Nehru stadium consistently over the last year. I began training properly only in the last few months. This is a special win considering that I’ve not competed at the top level for a while.”
An excited Olimba credited her coach Suresh for her win. “My coach deserves all the credit. He has been working really hard and motivating me in the last 6 months. I was stressed and not in the frame of mind to compete, but he definitely changed things around for me.”
Olimba has set her focus now on the upcoming national athletic competition in August. “If I secure a gold or silver medal in the event, I get an entry into the South Asian Athletic Championship, which will be my first international event,” she said.