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Anil Kumar Prakash
Sapper Anil Kumar Prakash (born 28 August 1978) is a retired Indian sprinter. He held the 100 metres national record of 10.30 s set at the National Circuit Athletic Meet held in New Delhi in 2005 which was broken in 2016.[2][3][4] He previously held the National Record at 10.21 seconds. Early lifeKumar was born on 28 August 1978 in Alappuzha district in the Indian State of Kerala.[5] He studied at T. K. Madhava Memorial College, Nangiarkulangara. He took up decathlon in his college days and later took to sprints inspired by the successes of the P. T. Usha.[6] In 1994, he joined the Madras Engineer Group via sports quota. Running in the Army Championships the same year, he was timed at 10.30 seconds in the 100 metres heats on a handheld stopwatch, and attributing it to human error, a second was added to make it 11.30 seconds. In the semifinal and final, he was again timed at 10.30 seconds.[5] In 1996, at an event in Hyderabad, again with the handheld stopwatches, he was timed at 9.99 seconds, which however was not considered official and hence couldn't be attributed as a record. The "perplexed people" had to measure the track if it was really 100 metres.[5] Professional careerKumar's first big success came at National Open Championships in 1997 in Gandhinagar, when he broke Rajeev Balakrishnan's record of 100 metres to become the fastest man in India.[7] Injury kept him off the field for some time before success came again in 1999 at the Fifth National Games in Manipur when he clocked 10.58 s in the 100 metres and a 21.35 s in 200 metres.[6][8] In the same year on 15 August, Kumar broke the National record for 100 m when he clocked 10.33 s while finishing behind Sri Lanka’s Chinthaka De Soysa (10.29) (Sreelankan National record) in an International Circuit Meet held at Chennai. In 2000, he posted his personal best time of 10.21 s in Bangalore but in the absence of doping control the time was not ratified by the Athletics Federation of India.[9] On 17 July 2000, Kumar broke the 200 metres National record with an effort of 20.73 s at the National Circuit Athletic Meet held in Bangalore. He erased the then National record of 21.04 s in the name of Ajay Raj Singh, set in the Lucknow inter-State meet in 1999.[3] On 1 May 2002, in the National Circuit Athletic Meet at the Nehru Stadium in New Delhi, India's fastest runner equaled his own National record in 100 metres with a time of 10.33 s.[10] In the same month, Kumar came up with a commendable performance to win the 100 m dash in the second domestic circuit meet in Bangalore with an effort of 10.46 s.[7] In May 2004, he won the 200 m sprint in the Federation Cup Athletics Championships at the Nehru Stadium when he clocked 21.02 s.[11] A few weeks later he crowned again in the 200 m dash by clocking 20.84 s at the first ONGC National Athletics Circuit Meet in Delhi.[12] He is currently a trainer at Sports Authority of India, Kollam.[13] Achievements
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