India's star sprinter Hima Das is hoping to come back to the 400m event which shot her to fame in 2018. A year later, she had to pull out of the 400m race during the Asian Championships in Doha due to a lower back injury.
Her two lowest vertebrae in the lumbar spine were broken and displaced.
The 22-year-old athlete ran two 400m races in low-grade events in the Czech Republic in 2019, but since then, has not featured in the one-lap race. She also missed the World Championships 2019.
Das said she is hoping to make a comeback to the quarter-mile in the now-postponed Asian Games which may be held next year. She has been running 100m and 200m after returning from the layoff.
I have not cut off running the 400m. Recovery from injury is a long process. During my injury time, I was not able to run 400m because a lot of pressure developed on the right side of my back, said the star athlete. She was speaking to the media after winning the 100m gold in the National Inter-State Championships here with her personal best time of 10.43s.
Speaking about her recovery, Das said she ran 30m, 40m, 50m, 100m, and then 200m gradually. With physiotherapy, she is fine to run till 300m. "I ran 300m in Europe sometime earlier". She added that an athlete needs to pick up speed in the last 100m of the 400m race. In 2019, she was taken to hospital during training while running the last 100m.
However, she does not know when exactly she will be able to return to 400m. She hopes to do it in the near future. "It may happen at the end of this year. Otherwise, I may prepare 400m for the postponed Asian Games because I will get time to prepare".
She is the first Indian to win a global track event title by winning gold in the World Junior Championships in 2018. She also holds the national record of 50.79 seconds in 400m. After winning individual silver and gold medals in the 4x400m and mixed 4x400m relays in the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, she suffered her first injury.