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Team for C'Wealth Games named

NEW DELHI JULY 1. The Amateur Athletic Federation of India (AAFI) has selected a five-member team for participation in the Commonwealth Games beginning at Manchester on July 24.

The team comprises the lone male member; shot putter Navpreet Singh, and women athletes Bobby Aloysius (high jump), Anju B. George (long jump), Hardeep Kaur (hammer) and Neelam Jaswant Singh (discus).

India is fielding an athletics team at the games after 16 years. The AAFI had refused to enter a team on the last three occasions on the argument that the Indian standards were not of the desired levels.

This time, though, after having announced the decision to enter a team quite early, the AAFI might have at one stage planned to enter a bigger squad as a build-up for the Busan Asian Games. But not many athletes met the qualifying standards prescribed for selection _ third-place performance of the 1998 Games _ and it was felt that the relay squads, especially in the 4x400m events, were yet to settle down.

At least three others might have been in contention for making the trip to Manchester, discus thrower Anil Kumar, quarter miler K. M. Beenamol and heptathlete Soma Biswas. But they failed to make it for various reasons.

Anil Kumar, who has been training in Hungary this season, could not meet the third-place norm of 62.22 metres, while Beenamol, despite missing the criterion (51.01s) might still have been considered, but indicated that she was not interested. Soma, reportedly unwell, did not compete in the Federation Cup at Chennai, the final selection trials for the Games.

Hardeep Kaur, though she had not reached the standard of 61.61m in women's hammer, was selected keeping in mind her steady improvement and potential.

Bobby Aloysius, now training in Moscow, is expected to join the team at Manchester. She had set a National mark of 1.90m at the recent inter-State meet in Bangalore, thus ensuring her place in the team since that effort also bettered the qualifying norm of 1.88. She skipped the Chennai Federation Cup meet.

When it came to men's shot put, with the top three, Bahadur Singh, Shakti Singh and Navpreet in fine nick, the choice eventually fell on a younger competitor. Navpreet's 19.45m this season, against the qualifying mark of 19.33, was sufficient to clinch him a place, though, Bahadur is easily the best shot putter on current form. He is being `preserved' for the Asian Games.

The AAFI originally had an idea of keeping the top athletes away from the Asian championships in Colombo in August, and entering them only in the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games. But the athletes, at least some of them, have made it known that they were very much interested in competing in the Asian meet. The team to Colombo is expected to be announced within the next few days.

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