From the depths of despair: Avinash Sable makes his way back to the Asian Games

How does it feel to fall off the top of the world?

Ask Avinash Sable, India’s leading 3000m steeplechase runner. He knows.

Sable is a legend of sorts in Indian athletics. In the men’s 3000m steeplechase, India’s closest player is Neeraj Chopra. A Subedar in the Indian Army, Sable broke the national record 10 times.

He won gold at the 2022 Asian Games and became the only Indian to compete in the Olympic steeplechase final. In 2025, Sable was at the peak of his career.

He had reached a point where everything seemed to fall into place. Then in the Monaco Diamond League, he collapsed while jumping into the water.

While attempting a dive, Sable failed to land properly and tore his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), a career-threatening injury for the then 31-year-old. Within seconds, everything he had built was thrown into limbo.

“It wasn’t even my fault,” Avinash Sable told a preoccupied group of reporters in Delhi just before the Asian Games.

Included in the Asian Games athletics contingent, Sable has come to New Delhi to prove his mettle. If he did well and beat the cut-off (8:36.57s), he could board the flight to Aichi-Nagoya, Japan.

The crowd then settled in for seven and a half rounds.

THE MAGIC OF STEEPLECHASE

The 3000m steeplechase is a fascinating race in itself. The athlete must overcome 28 obstacles and seven dives during 7.5 laps, all while maintaining the rhythm and endurance needed to run three kilometers. One misstep can cost you precious seconds. One bad landing can cost a lot more.

For elite athletes, the race lasts eight to 10 minutes, with African runners dominating the event for decades. Sable, meanwhile, holds the fastest time among active Asian runners with a personal best of 8:09.91. Avinash Sable is currently among the fastest steeplechase athletes in Asia. (Image: PTI)

Racing against other Indian runners was never going to be Sable’s biggest test. He started by following the tempo and by the halfway point he had left the rest of the field well behind. The gap was so wide that he eventually narrowed significantly, finishing in 8:32.39, a time well below his best.

But by then the hours barely mattered. More significantly, this was the first steeplechase Sable had completed in 14 months.

I WAS AFRAID: AVINASH SABEL

After the event, Sable spoke in such a soft voice and with such precision that it was hard not to feel the pain of a runner who had spent more than a year away from the event that defined his career.

“I was scared,” Sable told reporters after his escape.

“2025 was the time when I felt I was probably in the best phase of my life. I thought I would improve my personal best and ride even better. But in the first lap I fell because of another athlete. It wasn’t really my fault. I was trying to save the athlete in front of me because otherwise he might get hurt. I didn’t realize it at the time.” I could suffer such a serious injury” Sable said of his injury in July 2025. Avinash Sable had no idea if he would ever compete again after 14 months on the sidelines (Reuters Photo)

“A lot of people told me that maybe I should stay out of the steeplechase, that I wasn’t going to come back. They told me to try the 5,000 or 10,000. But my heart couldn’t agree. An event that gave me everything, how could I leave it?” he added.

An Athletics Federation of India physicist told India Today that a coordinated effort was made to assess Sable immediately after his fall. ACL and meniscus injuries were quickly identified and Sable underwent knee surgery later that month.

But when Sable recovered from his injury, he wasn’t the same man. Nobody is.

He spent many nights crying in bed, knowing that it was not certain that he would ever come back as strong as before.

Sable described these matches as worse than when he first started the sport. It was almost as if the memory of the athlete he once was was erased and he had to build a new version of himself from the ground up.

It took some time to rebuild both the physical and mental aspects of his life as an athlete, but Sable eventually returned to training.

CWG 2026 WHICH HAPPENED

The soldier wanted to return to the Commonwealth Games. His recovery was going so well that he believed he could win a medal, maybe even a gold.

But another trouble followed.

After all it took to come back, an Asian Games medal would mean even more.

Avinash Sable opens up about what it would mean to get back on stage. pic.twitter.com/HiU6EDQSA4— Olympic Khel (@OlympicKhel) September 14, 2026

“I was back in regular training by March. But in May I picked up a shin injury and was struggling for a whole month. The CWG dream was gone.”

It was a minor injury compared to the one he suffered a year earlier, and Sable was able to return to work. After training at SAI Bengaluru under Kalyan Chaudhary, he slowly returned to the competition circuit.

“I want to thank the Athletics Federation of India from the bottom of my heart for my comeback. They believed in me and gave me the opportunity to go to the Asian Games even though I was out due to injury.”

“My coach Kalyan Chaudhary worked extremely hard with me in Bengaluru. We had training partners who did 1500m runs and long repeats with me. I would also like to thank all those athletes who kept motivating me and telling me, ‘Avinash, you can do it. You have the capacity to come back. Don’t give up’.”

SABEL IN THE ASIAN GAMES

Now, Sable will compete in the Asian Games, having earned a place in the Indian athletics contingent. He will enter the men’s steeplechase final on September 28 under the lights in Nagoya and believes he can challenge for a medal while living up to his expectations.

His main competition is expected to be Japanese runners and Qatar’s Zakaria Al Ahlaami. Avinash Sable will be one of India’s biggest medal hopes at the Asian Games. (Photo by Reuters)

“I have competed with many of these athletes before. I have competed at the Commonwealth Games and other international competitions, including previous Asian Games and Asian Championships,” Sable said.

“So I have that confidence. I carry that confidence with me, I believe I can win a medal,” he concluded.

There is perhaps a strange symmetry to Sable’s return. Steeplechase is a race based on obstacles, where the athlete has to find a rhythm and then find it again after each obstacle and each jump into the water. Over the past 14 months, Sable has had to do much of the same.

He had to rebuild his knee, rebuild his confidence and accept that the athlete he was before Monaco may not be the athlete who will return to the starting line in Nagoya. The one thing he never allowed himself to leave was the steeplechase itself.

Now, after 14 months away, Sable is back where he wanted to be all along, standing at the start of the race that gave him everything. The fear, tears, and uncertainty of those long months are still part of his story, but they don’t define where it ends.

He went through the depths of despair and emerged a different athlete and perhaps a different man, ready to face the odds again.

– The end

Issued by:

Kingshuk Kusari

Published on:

September 19, 2026, 7:00 AM IST