Egg-flip and a robust brew of self-discipline: PT Usha on coach Nambiar shaping her profession

One of PT Usha’s earliest dreads was the considered reaching late for coach OM Nambiar’s coaching session at 6 am. An old-school coach and a stickler for self-discipline, Usha got here underneath Nambiar’s wings when she joined the hostel of the Sports Division in Kannur as a Class 8 scholar. “If anyone reached at 6:05 am, they would be punished. You had to run with your pair of spikes held over your head around the ground. I had to run like that once or twice just after I joined the hostel, but not after that,” Usha recollects.
To attain on time, it was essential to get up by 4:45 am at the very least. The hostel had simply two bogs and three bogs for 80 trainees. A protracted toilet queue was not an excuse the retired air power sergeant-turned-coach would settle for.
“I would get up really early and stand in the queue. At times I would tell someone to hold my place in the queue and have a quick shut eye before my turn,” Usha says.
The police floor, in the course of town, didn’t have any constructions blocking the view. “If you were punished the whole town literally knew about it,” Usha says.
Coach Nambiar was a taskmaster but in addition incentivised coaching. “Whoever did the warm-up drills the best would get a toffee. I am the one who got the most toffees,” Usha says of the early days of the profitable coach-athlete partnership which started within the late Nineteen Seventies. A fourth-place end on the Los Angeles Games and a number of medals received by Usha on the Asian Games and Asian Championships earned her the moniker of Golden Girl. Nambiar, her coach, mentor and fixed shadow grew to become a family identify within the Eighties.

Such an exquisite second for all of us college students of Nambiar Sir. The 1st Dronacharya Awardee in Indian athletics historical past now additionally the first athletic coach to be conferred the PadmaShri. It is a proud second for all coaches in our nation. I’m immensely grateful for all his teachings. pic.twitter.com/dvEHiShXpv
— P.T. USHA (@PTUshaOfficial) January 27, 2021
Earlier this week Nambiar was named as a Padma Shri winner. At 89, he’s struggling for Parkinsons, hardly ever will get away from bed and desires help to stroll. “When he heard about being awarded the Padma Shri he was very happy. He felt he should have received it earlier, but better late than never,” Suresh his son says. Nambiar received’t be capable of journey for the award ceremony, Suresh confirms. “Haven’t thought about it yet. Maybe a family member will have to represent him. The only time he leaves the house is for a medical check-up.”
On Monday, hours earlier than the record of award winners was formally introduced, Usha had visited her coach. “We had gone for the engagement of my husband’s niece. It took place close to Nambiar sir’s house. So I dropped in. He insisted that I have a cup of tea,” Usha says. “Whenever I meet him a lot of memories come flooding back.”
Changing the eating regimen
In the 80s, the help system wasn’t nice so Nambiar needed to put on many hats, certainly one of them being a nutritionist. When coaching on the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi, Nambiar hit it off with the wrestling squad. “Wrestlers were big into badam milk. He would always get a glass for me. After a point the wrestlers would keep badam milk for me,” Usha says.
It was Nambiar who requested Usha, a pescatarian to begin consuming eggs and undertake a non-vegetarian eating regimen. At first, Usha discovered it arduous as a result of she didn’t just like the scent of eggs. But as ‘sir’ was insisting, she knew it might solely profit her on monitor and through coaching. “I was a vegetarian who would eat fish. In the sports hostel, I would not eat the boiled egg and would store it away in my bag. But eventually, Nambiar sir found out and gave me a yelling. There were so many eggs in my bag and they started smelling,” Usha says. Over the years, Usha obtained used to the egg-flip – uncooked egg combined in a glass of sizzling milk and stirred until it froths – which Nambiar would make for her each different day. “I would close my nostrils with my fingers and drink it. As Nambiar sir was giving it to me I drank it.”
A younger PT Usha (credit score: Usha’s private photograph album)
By the early Eighties, Usha knew she wanted Nambiar by her facet. The idea of a private coach was exceptional in India, Usha says. Once an athlete was a part of the Indian group, coaches on the nationwide camp took over. Usha was adamant to alter the system. She first tried to persuade athletics federation officers, however when that failed she went to the sports activities ministry. Finally, she knocked on the door of prime minister Indira Gandhi. “The prime minister was not in her office but I met PC Alexander (principal secretary) and told him why it was crucial for Nambiar sir to travel with me. Mr Alexander said, ‘don’t worry, it will be done’.”
Decision to focus on hurdles
This was across the time Nambiar had proposed the thought of Usha focussing on the 400 metres hurdles for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics which was a yr away. It was a sensible transfer by the coach because the occasion was comparatively new and was to be a part of the Olympics for the primary time. Usha was nonetheless smarting from bagging solely the silver within the 100m and 200m on the Asiad in Delhi and the coach was eager to problem his ward.
The Asian Track and Field meet in Kuwait is the place Nambiar examined Usha’s potential by making her run within the 400 metres. She received the gold at Kuwait City, which made Nambiar assured of being heading in the right direction.
“Nambiar sir told me I have a good stride pattern and he said I have the potential to become a top 400 metre hurdles runner,” Usha says.
Inconsolable at Los Angeles
How the lean at Olympic glory led to a heart-breaking fourth place end at Los Angeles has been retold through the years. In Usha’s newest retelling her coach was inconsolable.
“At first when they announced the top-three finishers my name was third. Then they started going through the slow-motion camera for half an hour. I was in the dope room when it was officially announced that the Romanian came third. Nambiar sir broke down. He wouldn’t stop crying. I was hurting inside, but I didn’t want my coach to see it. So I held myself together and consoled him. ‘Don’t worry we will win a medal at the next Olympics’ I told him.”

Usha and Nambiar minted medals in Asia, however the Olympic medal remained an unfulfilled dream. ‘A great regret’ is what each have referred to as it.
‘If only Usha had dipped at the finish line’, he rued. ‘Maybe I didn’t get sufficient publicity’, she consoled herself.Yet as her coach, a Dronacharya award winner, is bestowed with a prestigious civilian award, Usha recollects the person who stood out within the crowd as a result of he was sporting a cap and coat within the humidity when she first noticed him at a sub-district meet. “Without Nambiar sir’s guidance I would not have been able to achieve what I did for the country.”