BANGALORE, June 8: Being drawn on lane two in athletics is an obvious disadvantage. But to overcome that and set a National Record requires special talent.

Marur Keshave Gowda Asha is among the few talented athletes who take adversity in their stride.

She got off to a good start in the 100m hurdles and smoothly glided over the high hurdles and relegated Devi Bose to history. Asha's time of 13.83 was two hundredth of a second better than Bose's effort.

``Actually I was quite apprehensive because the first two lanes are rather soft and for a power runner like me it is a setback,'' says this bonny athlete.

``Asha is a natural. She learnt her techniques at the Sports School in Kudige under Benaka Prasad and was a pentathlete before settling down to concentrate in the hurdles. Then V R Beedu worked on improving her stamina with weight training and since 1995 she has been training with Purushottam Rai who worked on her speed and honing her technique.

  As a ninth standard student she had won the pentathlon gold, 100 m hurdles gold, high jump silver and a bronze in 100 flat on the cinder track of the MEG grounds in the State junior meet. That's where her career took off from.

She won the gold in pentathalon at Nagercoil Junior Nationals with 2800 points. Then she won silver in 400 metres hurdles in the senior Nationals and the inter-zonals.

But for these National Games, there was no special preparation. ``It is off season for us now. With so many postponements there was a lot of uncertainty. All athletes were affected. I am among the lucky few as I have been training at the SAI campus. Actually I am training for the SAF Games and then I have my sights on the 1998 Asian Games,'' says this 20-year old hurdler.

Incidentally she has made her employers, Canara Bank, very happy as they are the official bankers for the National Games. For this small town girl, it was a signal that bigger things were to come.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.