Bhubaneswar: Ace woman sprinter of Odisha Srabani Nanda believes that she can beat her personal best in the 200-meter sprint, her chosen event, at the Rio Olympics.
In an exclusive video sent to OTV today, the star athlete spoke at length about her experience at the Olympic village.
“Rio Olympics is my first Olympics. I was excited for this mega event. The excitement was there from the day I qualified for the event till my arrival at the Olympic Village at Rio De Janeiro. I was wondering about how the Olympic Village would be, the nature of the competition and the star athletes with whom I would compete. After arriving at the Olympic Village, I met world class sprinters Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Usain Bolt of Jamaica and really got motivated after interacting with them. For me, it was a great experience and great feeling. After interacting with them, I believe I can better my personal best in my event,” Nanda said.
Srabani had stormed into the Rio Olympics clocking 23.07 seconds in the 200-metre run in the XXVI International Meeting G. Kosanov Memorial at Almaty in Kazakhstan on June 26. The Olympic qualifying timing for 200 metre run was 23.20 seconds.
With this superlative performance, Srabani became the fourth woman athlete from Odisha after Rachita Panda-Mistry, Anuradha Biswal and Dutee Chand and the 100th Indian to achieve the historic feat.
Srabani has also qualified to participate in the 4X100 metre relay race along with Dutee, Srabani, HM Jyothi and Merylin Joseph.