Mastering the game

At the Seventh World Masters Games 2009 in Sydney, 49-year-old Dr Rohinton Mehta won gold in the 400 m hurdles with a personal best timing of 64.44 sec. In the 45-plus age group, Fareez Vasania took the silver in the triple jump with a 11.77 m leap. The Games were held from October 10-18, with 28,000 competitors in 28 sports from around 90 countries. "The World Masters Games are the Olympics for athletes aged 30 and above. The Games follow exactly the same pattern and are held, like the Olympics, every four years,” explains Mehta who is a specialist in the 400 m hurdles and competes only in this event.

Vasania participated in the 100 m, the long jump and triple jump. In cycling, Kerman Framna of Poona stood 31st in the 19 km individual road time trial out of 37 starters, says Mehta. Athletics, with 2,824 competitors, was among the most popular with the 19-member Indian athletics team winning a gold, a silver and a bronze.

Committed and consistent, Mehta has kept pace with veteran (masters) athletics for the past 13 years and has won a plethora of medals in India and outside. "For 12 years I trained on my own, doing my own reading and setting up my own training schedules, etc,” he narrates. "However, 400 m hurdles being a technical event, it requires the spotting of errors and their correction. Therefore I joined the Ace Athletic Club at the Priyadarshani Park and have been training for the past one year under a German trained coach Dinanath Maurya.”

Veteran hurdler Rohinton Mehta in his triumphant stride at the Sydney World Masters Games

With tactics as important as training, coach and athlete decided on a new strategy. "Before this race I was ranked seventh and so on paper I was an underdog. This is good, as it takes the pressure away from me! It is important to note that in veteran athletics, performance is expected to drop by about two seconds every five years, even when training, diet and other variables are constant. This is due to the aging process and the atrophy of muscles,” he describes. The challenge for the over-35 runner/hurdler is to control this or in rare cases actually reverse the process. "I was clocking between 66 and 67 sec in big athletic competitions at the age of 37. Today, at 49, I am clocking between 64 and 65. So I have aged 12 years and dropped two seconds — this is the real challenge!”

The plan was to speed up at the 300 m mark, whereas in earlier races he had done exactly the opposite! "I was leading but very very marginally right from the gun. At the eighth hurdle (300 m) I accelerated to put in a half-meter lead between myself and second placed George Herger of Australia. He hit the eighth hurdle and the gap increased to over three meters. I knew I had won the race and did not want to mess things up by attacking the ninth and 10th hurdles.” The final sprint saw Mehta, a lawyer by profession, home by about two meters. The race favorite and Australian national champion had crashed out at the fifth hurdle. The crowd at the Sydney Olympic Park Athletic Centre were stunned at the upset win, he chuckles, as here was an Indian running against six feet tall Europeans, Americans and Australians! To boot, Mehta had taken a false start and was under warning (yellow card)!

Fareez Vasania: silver moment at World Masters Games

"The others were strong, weight-trained hurdlers with good technique,” he opines. "Their problem was that they had weak running endurance and were not effectively able to bear the onslaught of lactic acid buildup in the last 100 m.”

"People think that at the veterans level if you train for a while you can succeed. But that is not so. These are serious athletes and the competition is fierce,” 45-year-old Vasania speaks from experience. "It is also an expensive affair. Air tickets, entry fee, food, special diet during the preceding weeks, training — I paid for everything myself. The government gives no support. In fact, I had to pay for my India track suit and vest as well!”

Taking part in sprints and jumps, Vasania says he stood no chance in the 100 m: "I reached the semi-final but there were all these Afro-Americans and you know how they run! In the long jump, I stood fourth, missing a podium position by two cm. In the triple jump, of my six jumps I fouled four, so there was a lot of pressure on me. The distance of 11.77 m was not my personal best, but I am happy I won the silver.” What motivates you at this age, we query. Vasania gives a hearty laugh: "There’s no real motivation. I am basically a footballer. I love the freedom of running and jumping! I just want to be a boy! It’s a great feeling — exhilaration in exhaustion!”