14-year-old was among starters at Lyon worlds, Indian official says
Manonmani couldn’t make it to Sacramento worlds in 2011.
Here’s the article for posterity’s sake:
Officiating in the World Masters Athletics Championships, 2015 in Lyon, France, earlier this month, has made 44-year-old Manonmani Kamalanathan the first woman technical official in athletics from India to officiate in an international meet outside the country.
She couldn’t be happier.
But four years ago, this technical official in athletics, was dejected as she was deprived of a chance to officiate in the World Masters Athletics Championship (WMAS) in Sacramento in the United States for want of a visa.
“I would have been happy if it had come through four years ago, but destiny said it had to happen only this year,” said Manonmani, who had earlier been to Colombo as a Team Manager for the Tamil Nadu junior team.
She has also officiated in the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi.
Manomani feared she would not make it this year either, but thanks to Winston Thomas (Secretary, World Masters Athletics Association) and Bill Courtney (International Technical Official of the Meet), she did.
“The French tour was an eye opener,” said Manomani. “I learnt a lot, particularly about punctuality, hospitality and time management. I was also surprised that both the young and old were roped in for organising the show. Would you believe it, a 14-year-old boy (Jordan) was the starter for the track events!”
About the events she officiated in she said, “I officiated in javelin, discus, hammer and weight throw events the first three days. Weight throw was a new introduction – more like hammer throw but the weight of the iron ball was 9.2kgs. Besides that, I also officiated in track events for the first time in an international meet.” She also admitted that her officiating skills needed to be upgraded.
Manomani described the track events as being full of energy. “It was a close finish in the men’s 90-plus 100m. The same was the case in the women’s section. They all looked fit for their age,” she said.
A Physical Director with the Sri Jayendra Saraswathi Vidyalaya group of institutions, Manonmani thanked Dhanalakshmi Jayachandran, the Correspondent, and Mythreyi Priya, its Secretary and her family for being so supportive.
5 Responses
Turns out Jordan was 16, and knew his stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R51Xh2s_WKw
He’s a French volunteer official who has been formally trained.
Punctuality and time management were not OK for my events, hopefully it was better on later days.
Do I wish, we had that young man as our starter for the first event of the whole meet: women’s heptathlon…
80 m hurdles:
On your marks – and then the gun…
Forgot: STILL WAITING FOR THE RECALL….
Flo did, what I used to “preach” to my students: when the gun goes off, you run…
I just waited and then tried to play catch-up!!
But my ribs are healing nicely…
6 month to the next big meet!
The meet went like clockwork for the mostpart. I was on the track when Jordan was working….he was a fine Official. I’d use him anytime!
Leave a Reply