KM Beenamol

Date of birth:
Event: 400m, 800m and 4x400m
First Olympics appearance: -
Records at Olympics: -
Achievements: Two gold medals in the Busan Asian Games

The Keralite sprint queen, winner of two gold medals in the Busan Asian Games, will run to her final frontier this Olympics. She has plans to retire after Athens but not without giving a shot to her pet events, 400m, 800m and 4x400m.

Beenamol, who first shot into limelight in 1991, will most probably celebrate her 29th birthday at the Games Village in Athens on Independence Day even if she fails to qualify in the individual events as she is also part of the 4x400m relay team.

The quartet of Beenamol, Manjit Kaur, Rajwinder Kaur and Chitra K Somaan clocked a new a national record of 3:27.35 seconds in the second leg of the 2004 Asian Grand Prix series in Colombo last month to bolster their chances of getting an Olympic berth. The Padma Shri and Khel Ratna award winner said she is also trying hard to make the grade in the individual events. "I am still trying to qualify in either 400m or 800m. I am more close to the qualifying marks in 400 which is 51.50." Her best this season is the 51.59 achieved at Chennai Circuit Meet last month.