Naser sprints closer to history

Bahraini, 21, tipped to break 400m mark after third-fastest time at world championships

Bahrain's Salwa Eid Naser crossing the finishing line to win the 400m final ahead of the Bahamas' Olympic champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo at the Khalifa International Stadium in Doha. PHOTO: REUTERS
Bahrain's Salwa Eid Naser crossing the finishing line to win the 400m final ahead of the Bahamas' Olympic champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo at the Khalifa International Stadium in Doha. PHOTO: REUTERS

DOHA • After a remarkable 400m world-title winning time of 48.14sec to rekindle memories of a bygone era when athletics were dominated by the Eastern Bloc, Salwa Eid Naser's "big dreams" of breaking the 34-year world record looks set to be realised sooner than later.

The engaging 21-year-old - born Ebelechukwu Agbapuonwu in Anambra state, Nigeria, to a Nigerian mother and Bahraini father - pulled off a shock win over Olympic gold medallist Shaunae Miller-Uibo, who had not lost a race since August 2017, on Thursday night.

However, it was the time, the third fastest in history, that took many observers' breaths away.

Only those over 40 would recall watching the two women who have run faster than her, Marita Koch of East Germany, who set the world record of 47.60sec in 1985, and the former Czechoslovakia's Jarmila Kratochvilova, who ran 47.99sec in 1983.

Their marks were recorded in an era when the Cold War was ongoing, and while neither Koch nor Kratochvilova failed a doping test, their respective nations are known to have operated state-sponsored programmes.

Athletic supremacy was then viewed by their rulers as a weapon in the battle between the Eastern and Western blocs.

The 21-year-old Naser, who switched allegiances to Bahrain at 16, however, played coy as to whether she considered her time in Doha to be the fastest clean one.

"You tell me," she replied.

Miller-Uibo - who herself ran history's sixth-fastest time (48.37sec), only to have to settle for silver - feels the world record will eventually fall in the event she considers "her baby".

But when asked if she believed Naser's time was the quickest untainted run, she too refused to be drawn on the past, adding that she "preferred not to comment".

While Naser's victory may have stunned many, her results in the past two years marks her out as a genuine world-beater.

A silver at the last world championships in 2017 - ahead of her idol Allyson Felix of the United States but behind Miller-Uibo - heralded her talent as she became the youngest 400m medallist.

Her Asian Games success last year also highlighted her extraordinary resilience.

Having run two relay finals at the end of that competition, she then took a 14-hour flight from Jakarta to Brussels before winning the 400m Diamond League title the next day.

That sort of determination is a characteristic that six-gold Olympic champion Felix would admire and Naser believes they share common ground.

"Allyson is my role model as I see similarities," she said.

"I was really looking up to her and I still look up to her, she's an amazing athlete."

Recalling how she has had to dig deeper than most - her road to the top has been fraught with injury, after a car accident when she was just six left her with a weakened left ankle - Naser added: "I am a Gemini so I adapt to things quickly and take on an attitude of whatever happens, happens."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on October 05, 2019, with the headline Naser sprints closer to history . Subscribe