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Rio 2016: Lalita Babar looks to forge new path

She has been quite a trendsetter in Indian athletics and Lalita Babar will be expected to scale new heights when she gets on her mark for the 3,000m steeplechase final here on Monday.

She has been quite a trendsetter in Indian athletics and Lalita Babar will be expected to scale new heights when she gets on her mark for the 3,000m steeplechase final here on Monday.

Winning a medal will though will be tough but not entirely impossible for the 27-year-old from the drought-prone Satara district in Maharashtra, who became the second Indian woman after P.T. Usha in 1984 Los Angeles, to qualify for a final at the quadrennial extravaganza.

Lalita qualified for the final round after finishing fourth in her heats with a national record timing of 9 minutes, 19.76 seconds.

She was the seventh fastest qualifier overall. Social media is abuzz with images of her parents visiting temples and performing pujas at her native place in Maharashtra and she is set to be torch bearer of Indian athletics in this Olympics if she repeats her timing or does better on Monday.

But, it will have to be seen whether Lalita will be able to better Usha, who missed the bronze by one-hundreth of a second, or will she be able to have a sniff of the elusive athletics medal in Olympics as the field is extremely tough with the global creame in this event, including the reigning world champion, the reigning Olympic champion as well as the season leader, are all in the fray.

At least five runners, who finished ahead of Lalita in the World Championships in Beijing last year, will be competing in Monday’s finals. Lalita had finished eighth in the World Championships with a time of 9:27.86.

The favourite to win tomorrow is Kenyan-born Ruth Jebet, who switched to Baharain colours in 2013.

She is the season leader with an astounding 8:59.97s which she clocked in Eugene in May and she ran 9:12.62 to win her heat on Saturday.

Lalita will be pumped up to do well in the field of elite runners as she has gone on producing better results in every big event.

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