She may not know it, but M Gomathi firmly wrested the spotlight and trained it on Indian track and field sport twice over in the past fortnight. First by winning an unexpected women's 800m gold medal in the Asian Athletics Championships in Doha last month and then by speaking about the hardships that she had to face in the past few years to make her dream come true.

At a time when PU Chithra became a repeat winner of the Asian Championships women's 1500m and shot putter Tajinderpal Singh Toor lived up to expectations by being the only Indian to win a men's gold medal in Doha, Income Tax employee Gomathi stole everyone's thunder by revealing that her father had once partaken a meal kept aside for cattle so that she could eat a proper meal.