In the world of international athletics, Hima Das' gold medal in the 400m at the Junior World Championships is nothing short of earth-shaking. Even as the dust eventually settles on Hima's historic achievements -- the 18-year-old became the first Indian track medallist at a global event -- there will undoubtedly be demands for even more prestigious victories: this time at an elite level. It has been a while since any Indian track athlete has ever come close to achieving that. But if anyone can, surely it must be this most prodigious of athletes, who has meteorically shot past expectations and predictions in just 18 months of an athletic career.
Not so fast. The gulf between Das and the very best remains a yawning one. The Indian's personal best is 51.13 seconds. It took a sub-50-second timing to medal (49.85 seconds for bronze) at the Rio Olympics. "You can't win an Olympic medal on just talent alone," is the blunt assessment of Anju Bobby George, who finished fifth at the 2004 Olympics and remains the only Indian to win a medal (2003 bronze) at the Senior World Championships.
It's a frank opinion but a common one. "Especially in track and field, the margins are just so small," says Manisha Malhotra, the former administrator of the Mittal's Champions Trust that was created to support athletes with world-beating potential, the highest profile of whom was Beijing gold medallist Abhinav Bindra.
Nor is the path from the juniors to seniors anything like a smooth track curve. Of the 16 gold medallists in the 400m at the Junior World Championships, just one -- 2010 winner Shaunae Miller of Bahamas -- has gone on to win an individual medal at the Olympics.
It's a fact Viren Rasquinha, the CEO of Olympic Gold Quest, is all too familiar with. "We have been grappling with that problem for a while now," he says. "I've had the opportunity to work with and support a lot of junior athletes over nine years. In that time just one [PV Sindhu] has gone on to win an Olympic medal. This is something that I've seen across sports. Hima has sheer raw talent and expectations in India are sky high, but at the elite level there are a lot more factors that come into play."
Malhotra feels she has seen this before. "Back at the 2008 Olympics, I had a number of coaches who wanted to know more about an Indian 400m runner," Malhotra says. "They thought MR Poovamma [then 18] was one of the most talented athletes they had seen."
Indeed in 2009, Poovamma would train for a short stint in South Africa under former national coach Marc Labauschagne who remarked that if he had the athlete for four years, an Olympic medal was within reach. For various reasons though -- the athlete wanted to stay in India to be close to her parents, and also studies -- that plan fell through. Although Poovamma would go on become amongst the best Indian quarter-milers of her generation, she was never able to compete at a world standard.
"Historically India has often had these athletes who are bolts of lightning but are unable to progress in the manner that was expected of them," says Malhotra.
"I had to struggle to even qualify for international tournaments but because she [Hima] is the junior world champion she will get a lot of chances to participate internationally. And her biggest advantage is her confidence and her attitude. She has no fear of competing at any level." Anju Bobby George
This isn't to say Hima is destined to follow a similar path. She is a far stronger runner at a similar stage of development. Her sixth-place finish in an elite field at the Commonwealth Games showed she was not overawed by her more illustrious compatriots.
What nearly everyone agrees on is the fact that she needs a lot more exposure to high-level competition and a system around her that works to support her.
"There are areas of her race where she doesn't do as well only because she is so new to the 400m," says Basant Singh, coach of the national team. "She only started learning it last November. The World Junior Championships was only the 10th race of her career. The more experience she gets, the faster she will be able to run."
"That experience is vital," says George. "The reason I was able to do well at the Olympics and at the World Championships was because I was competing nearly the entire year in Europe and USA. It's only when you compete against the best international athletes that you get to learn your own mistakes."
That need to compete internationally is doubly important considering Hima is so far ahead of her Indian compatriots. Jisna Mathew, the second-best 18-year-old in the country, has a personal best (52.65 seconds) one-and-a-half seconds slower than that of Hima. "It would be a lot easier for Hima if there were 10 athletes who were at the same level as her," says Malhotra. "She would get a push in training. If there are certain aspects of your race, say the starting or at the first turn that you want to improve, that happens when you are training with athletes who are at your level. You won't improve just racing against a timer."
Beyond the competition itself, there is the critical task of being fit enough to compete. "The aspect of training we don't emphasise at all is recovery," says George. "As Hima starts to improve further, she will have to train heavier than she is doing now. She's 18 right now and her body will be able to recover relatively easily. But at a certain point she will need her recovery to be planned out properly. She has to finish her season without injury."
For Malhotra, the solution is a simple one -- Hima needs to find a coach outside the country and a stable of high-level runners she can learn from and improve with. "Right now Hima is running around the 51-second mark," says Malhotra. "But she has to run in the low-fifties [50.00 seconds] to even make it to the finals of the Olympics. Breaking into the next level will not happen in India. Complacency might come in because she is so far ahead of everyone here and there is already so much of interest after a World Junior gold. There are just so many factors that could set you back. But Hima is the face of the sport in India and there will be a hundred people trying to dig their claws into her."
George, though, remains optimistic of Hima's prospects. She believes that with national coach Galina Bukharina -- the coach of the 1988 Olympic gold winning Soviet 4x400 squad, subsequently a number of NCAA champions and an Olympic 4x100m bronze medallist herself -- Hima will not face too many problems in planning. More important is the quality of the athlete herself. "I had to struggle to even qualify for international tournaments but because she is the junior world champion she will get a lot of chances to participate internationally," says George. "And her biggest advantage is her confidence and her attitude. She has no fear of competing at any level. That is something you can't coach."