Rio 2016: Lalita Babar in women's 3000m steeplechase final

Lalita Shivaji Babar, till a few years back a little-known village girl from Maharashtra's drought-hit Satara region, scripted a new chapter in Indian athletics on Saturday. Babar became the first female athlete to enter the final of an Olympic track event since PT Usha made the grade in the 1984 Los Angeles Games.
Running in the second heat of women's 3000m steeplechase, the Asian Games silver medallist clocked 9 minutes, 19.76 seconds to book her berth in the final.Saturday's effort also saw her shave nearly eight seconds off her previous best (9:27.09s), clocked at the World Championships in Beijing last year. In the process she also snatched the national record, bettering the 9:26.55s set by Sudha Singh in the Diamond League competition in Shanghai. Meanwhile, Sudha, a 2010 Asiad gold medallist, faded away in heat 3, clocking 9:43.29s.
As she lines up against 17 of the world's best steeplechasers on Independence Day, Lalita will be looking to make amends for her disappointing show in Beijing, where she had been two seconds slower in the final than in the heats.
That would be a stunning effort but the time is not beyond the reach of Lalita, who ran her first steeplechase at the Asian Games and returned with a bronze (9:35.37s) from Incheon. It remains to be seen whether the Maharashtra girl, capable of running any distance -from 800m to marathon -can lift the mood of a billion people awaiting a medal from Rio. Lalita will compete over a seven-and-half lap course that includes four barriers per lap and one water hazard.

Lalita's story can easily be scripted into a Bollywood potboiler as she battled poverty at home and water shortage in her village which is located in one of the worst drought affected areas in the country.
The 27-year-old shot into limelight with her exploits in marathon, emerging as the Indian winner in Mumbai edition thrice (2012, 2013 and 2014) but got hooked to 3,000m steeplechase after being introduced to the highly technical event by Belarussian coach Nikolai Sneasarev. Snesarev travelled to Rio with just three athletes -the other Indian middle and long distance runners refused to train under him, unable to cope with his punishing training schedule that entails 7-8 hours of training and a bland diet of boiled chicken and vegetables. Besides Lalita, the other two athletes trained by Snesarev at Rio are OP Jaisha and Kavita Raut who will compete in women's marathon.
It was a punishing schedule for all the trainees of Snesarev. They toiled hard first at the high-altitude training centre in Ooty and then at the SAI South Centre in Bengaluru. "He may be a tough taskmaster but he knows how to get his athletes to hit peak form when it matters," a top athletics official told TOI.
The expert said the best thing about Lalita is that she has always managed to produce her best performance on the big stage. "She lifted her performance at the Asian Games and then at the World Championships and she is doing that again in Rio," the official added.
In fact, Lalita had a double ticket to go to Rio as she had first qualified for the Olympics in marathon, clocking 2:38.21s in last year's Mumbai event.