Inter-State Athletics: From modest beginnings, late bloomers Reegan and Gowtham take big leap to share pole vault gold medal

“They initially refused a wild card. I had to send them videos to get an opportunity,” he told The Indian Express. “So, the only thing that was going on in my mind was I shouldn’t make them regret it.” He went a step further. After both ended up with 5.20m, Reegan cheered for Gowtham, who valiantly tried to cross 5.25m.

Moments later, Reegan crossed the tracks and headed towards his coach, Milber Bertrand Russel. Then, he raised the height of the cross bar from 5.20m to 5.30m. He came close to clearing it on his final jump. But the bar dangled for a moment, before it crashed on Reegan, who rolled over and buried his face in his palms.

It was fitting that all of this unfolded at the very venue where Reegan had suffered some serious injuries. As his coach Russel pointed out, he once landed so badly on the box that Reegan remained unmoved for a while. On another occasion, he needed 6-7 stitches on his thigh.

“This place has only seen my failures. A lot actually. I’ve badly hurt my back, thigh and shoulder and honestly have lost count. I narrowly missed a head injury as well,” says Reegan who now trains at Reliance Foundation.

Reegan had not laid his hands on a pole vault until he moved to Chennai five years ago. During his school days at Solagankarai village in Thanjavur’s delta region, he used bamboo sticks from his farm to jump on a mat.

On other occasions, he had to put his creativity to good use. “We had a small channel passing through our farm and its banks used to have soft mud. So, I would tie a wire on top of it and clear it with a bamboo stick. If there is no water, I would head to the lake and jump into it to avoid getting injured. It is only after I came to Chennai that everything started to change, starting with shoes. Even now it is torn, but it is better than when I started,” says Reegan.

Reegan credits his coach Don Wilcox for spotting him at his school and bringing him to Chennai to pursue pole vault as well as a bachelor’s degree. “After I came here, Gerald Sir was coaching me. Since the last four months, Milber has been coaching me.”

Russel has been instrumental in changing his technique. “First thing we did was to alter his approach in the run-up. There is still some 30-40% pending on that front, but it is better than what it was. Earlier, he used to be slanting and the high carry wasn’t there. So we fixed it. We are targeting the Asian Games break, so he still has a long way to go,” Russel says.

Standing a metre away from him was Manickaraj, who coached Russel and is now training Gowtham, the 23-year-old from Salem. Another athlete with a farming background, Gowtham too was a late starter.

“It was Manickaraj Sir who told me I can have a career in pole vault. Before that, like Reegan, I had only used bamboo sticks to jump and it would be just 2m. I didn’t know the technique or anything. It was all about using the bamboo stick to gain elevation and jump. In my 12th standard, my PT teacher Jeeva asked me to try it out. I didn’t even know a sport like this existed until I came to Chennai. Then, once I started going to competitions, I got more and more experience and understanding. This gold is for my coaches,” says Gowtham who hails from Edappadi in Salem district.

Both Reegan and Gowtham, though, admit that they missed Dev Meena, who currently holds the national record (5.40m) and had to pull out of the Chennai event at the last minute. “I didn’t come here looking for gold or anything. All that I wanted to do was improve my personal best. Having Gowtham around was a huge motivation because I knew he wasn’t going to relent. If Dev were around, it would have been the same. When there is competition, it motivates you to do better. When Gowtham went for 5.25m, I’d made up my mind that I would shift my cross bar from 5.20m to 5.30m,” Reegan says.

“The reason we decided to go for gold was, we were happy for both. Even for Logu (Loganathan). We have got here with so much struggle. We were just looking to improve our best and it happened,” Gowtham says.