Sport - Athletics

Olympic qualification race hots up

BHOPAL: The first real test for the Indian athletes towards Olympic Games preparations will come up over the next four days when the Federation Cup championships begin at the Tantia Tope Stadium here on Tuesday.

Limited events and restricted entries marked the season opener at Patiala last Thursday, but this is a full-fledged meet with an open field and tougher contests and better performances could be expected.

Moreover, this will also form the basis for selection of the Indian team for the inaugural South Asian championships to be held in Kochi on March 7 and 8. There should be a rush for at least getting into the relay teams.

The Indian Grand Prix meet at Patiala provided an encouraging indication of the form the women quarter milers were in but it could not produce the kind of timings that one was looking forward to from the middle distance runners.

Also disappointing were the male triple jumpers, but the 58-plus mark by woman discus thrower Harwant Kaur must have brought some relief to the federation which is tipping three women discus throwers to make it to the Beijing Olympics.

The qualification mark is 59m for a single entry and 61m for two or three.

From the Olympics perspective, the focus will continue to remain on the women 400m runners since they will eventually have to form a team and get into the top 16 of the world and then hope to better their performance at the last Olympics in Athens where India clocked an incredible 3:26.89, the current National record, while qualifying for the final. The team finished seventh in the final with a timing of 3:28.59.

In Athens, Manjeet Kaur ran the fastest ever relay leg by an Indian, 49.85s. She had clocked a National record (51.05) that year. She had a best of 53.65 last year and timed 53.62 at Patiala last Thursday. Considering the fact that the best by a 400m runner last year was the 53.01 clocked by Chitra Soman, the sub-54 by the top three at Patiala has already generated hope.

The male 400m runners have not inspired confidence that they too would be in the running for Olympic tickets. With K.M. Binu yet to join the camp, the best at Patiala, by Virender Kumar Pankaj, was a modest 47.51. The men need to go well below 47 seconds to think about an impossible-looking task of making the top 16 in the world.

Relays apart, interest should be alive in all the middle and long distance events. The evening chill at Patiala did not turn out to be conducive for the likes of Chatholi Hamza and Sinimole Paulose, both of whom were expected to go to Valencia, Spain, for the World indoor championships next month.

But there has been a change of plans and they, as well as other middle distance runners, are expected to stay on at home. Coach Nikolai Snesarev has not been enthusiastic about their participation here, considering the state of the track, and the runners could take things easy without pushing for the timings.

Surendra Singh and Preeja Sreedharan, in the 5000 metres, will have a formidable task in aiming for 13:28.00 and 15:24.00 respectively in order to make the Beijing grade.

Renjith Maheswary will miss this meet, busy as he is with a training programme in the U.S. It is a tall order for Amarjeet Singh and Bibu Mathew to aim for the 16.80m or 17.10m (two entries) required for the Olympic standards in triple jump.

The news that Anju George could be competing here should be encouraging from the spectators’ point of view. The federation is keen that leading athletes should compete in domestic meets to keep the interest alive.

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