New Delhi:  Cricket great Sachin Tendulkar may be revered as a sporting god in India but he will never be given the honour of carrying India's national flag at an Olympic Games.


Long jumper Anju Bobby George has been more fortunate, with the accolade befalling her in Athens as India's finest ever track and field athlete carried the banner.

As their highest profile competitor, she was also saddled with the heavy burden of expectation of delivering India's first ever athletics Olympic medal.


The 29-year-old failed in her quest despite posting a personal best of 6.83 metres to finish in a highly respectable sixth.
There is no denying that the reigning Asian Games title holder has set the benchmark for Asian women field athletes since she first jumped into world reckoning at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England.

At the time her name only engendered interest from a mass of English journalists who thought she might be a relation of Bobby George  known as The King of darts'.


"I don't even know the game of darts," was her bemused reply to journalists questions.

But by the end of competition she had firmly established her name in its own right by taking bronze. In fact, her name comes from a more mundane source as her husband and coach is Bobby George, a former national triple jump champion.

That was an annus mirabilis for the girl from Changanassery, Kerala, whose father inspired her into athletics, as she went onto land the Asian Games title in Busan, South Korea with a leap of 6.53 metres.


"That was such a joyous moment for me and for my husband. It was a result of all the hard work that we both put in and was a defining moment for me and a due reward also to my father's instincts that I could become a world class athlete," she said.

George was to rubberstamp the impression of top class quality the next year when she became the first Indian ever to win a medal at the world outdoor championships, scooping a bronze in Paris with a jump of 6.70 metres.
Her achievement was recognised that year when she was conferred with the country's highest sporting honour, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award.

While she failed to medal in last year's world championships or at the Commonwealth Games this year she did take silver at the world athletics final in 2005 which she claimed as her finest ever achievement.

She also won the Asian Championships at Incheon, South Korea.

She approaches the Asian Games in Doha with a solid record, but still plenty to prove. World No.9 Kumiko Ikeda of Japan will be her toughest challenger.