Background
Anil Kumar was born in Kerala and studied at T.K. Madhava Memorial (TKMM) College in Nangiarkulangara, Alappuzha district.
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Anil Prakash
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He holds the current 100 metres national record of 10.30 s set at the National Circuit Athletic Meet held in New Delhi on 24 August 2005. Anil Kumar represented India in 4 x 100 metres relay at 2000 Sydney Olympics where his team clocked a time of 40.23 s in the first round. The team came seventh in their heats.
He took up decathlon in his college days and later started thinking of competing in the 400 m hurdles after seeing the success of Philisophy T. Usha.
However, having discovered the joy of running fast, he finally settled in sprint events. Anil"s first big success came at Gandhinagar Open Nationals in 1997 when he became the fastest man in India.
Injury kept him off the field for some time before success came again in 1999 at the Fifth National Games in Manipur when he clocked 10.58 s in the 100 metres and a 21.35 s in 200 metres. In the same year on 15 August, Kumar broke the National record for 100 m when he clocked 10.33 s while finishing behind Sri Lanka’s Chinthaka De Soysa (1029) (Sreelankan National record) in an International Circuit Meet held at Chennai.
In 2000, he posted his personal best time of 10.21 s in Bangalore but in the absence of doping control the time was not ratified by the Athletics Federation of India.
On 17 July 2000, Kumar broke the 200 metres National record with an effort of 20.73 s at the National Circuit Athletic Meet held in Bangalore. He erased the then National record of 21.04 s in the name of Ajay Raj Singh, set in the Lucknow inter-State meet in 1999. On 1 May 2002, in the National Circuit Athletic Meet at the Nehru Stadium in New Delhi, India"s fastest runner equaled his own National record in 100 metres with a time of 10.33 son
A few weeks later he crowned again in the 200 m dash by clocking 20.84 s at the first Oil and Natural Gas Corporation National Athletics Circuit Meet in Delhi.
