Know the athletes: Who are the members of India’s 4x400m mixed relay team?

India will feature in the 4x400m mixed relay event, which will make its Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020, scheduled to start on July 23.

India locked in an Olympic berth as they made the finals of the IAAF World Athletics Championships at Doha, Qatar in 2019 with a timing of 3:16.14. In the eight-team final, they came in seventh with a season’s best performance of 3:15.77.

Sarthak Bhambri, Alex Antony, Revathi Veeramani, Subha Venkatesan and Dhanalakshmi Sekar were selected, by the Athletics Federation of India, to represent the country at Tokyo 2020. Here’s more on the team members:

Sarthak Bhambri

The Delhi athlete won the selection trials with a timing of 47.73 seconds. The 22-year-old was part of the AFI development group at the national camp till 2020, but was asked to leave the camp when the pandemic struck.

“It was a difficult phase of my life and hard to explain. But I managed to train outside the camp in Patiala at odd hours to stay fit,” he told Sportskeeda.

The quartermiler has also had to overcome injury struggled. He had to undergo surgery on his right knee in 2017 and was told that they may not be able to run again. But he pieced his athletics career back and is now on the brink of an Olympic debut.

Alex Anthony

Born in Pulluvila village in Kerala, Anthony spent much of his childhood on the high seas helping his fisherman father and playing football. It was his PE teacher, Pradeep Kumar, who nudged him to the athletics track.

He joined the Sports Authority of India (SAI) in Thiruvananthapuram after school and got a job the Indian Air Force through a sports quota. Anthony could not make it to Rio 2016 as he was nursing an injury and was unable to compete in the qualifying events.

But he has been a bright prospect for India since 2019, when he was part of the Asian Championships and World Championships contingent. Though he was down with a bout of food poisoning, the 26-year-old clocked 47.83 seconds during the national selection trials to clinch his place in the team.

Revathi Veeramani

She won the trials with a time of 53.55 seconds. Veeramani was brought up by her grandmother, who is a daily wage worker, as she lost both her parents when she was around six years of age.

When Veeramani took up athletics in school, she used to run barefoot and would struggle to get one meal a day. It was her coach Kannan, who took her under his wing and supported her career financially.

“Coach Kannan spotted me running without shoes and he was the one who got it for me,” she told India Today. “He also ensured that I got a seat for college and his training helped me win medals during college.” The 23-year-old from Madurai is currently employed by the Indian Railways.

Subha Venkatesan

Hailing from Tamil Nadu’s Tiruchirappalli, Subha is the third child of Venkatesan, a construction worker, and Poongodi, a homemaker. She was inspired by her grandfather Sanglimuthu, a former athlete, to take up sport.

"Those were difficult days for the family. My brother-in-law (elder sister's husband) used to help by gifting some gear," Subha told the Quint. She has been training at the NIS centre in Patiala for the last five years and has won multiple medals at national championships.

The 21-year-old came in second in the women’s field during the selection trials with a time of 54.26 seconds.

Dhanalakshmi Sekar

The 23-year-old made headlines in March as she shattered Indian legend PT Usha’s 200m meet record at the Federation Cup. She clocked 23.36s in the heats to beat Usha’s record of 23.30 set in 1998.

Dhanalakshmi had out-sprinted Dutee Chand to win the 100m title in the event, while she recorded a faster time than Hima Das in the 200m heats.

Like Veeramani and Subha, Dhanalaskhmi faced various challenges early in life. Her father passed away when she was very young, and she and two of her younger sisters, were brought up by their mother who worked as domestic help. Having started her sporting career with kho-kho, she switched to athletics in 2017 and has been racing past milestones ever since.

When will the Indian mixed relay team be seen in action?

India's 4x400m mixed relay team will compete in the heats on July 30.