The Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Hanamkonda, Warangal, Telangana, which can host the National Open Athletics Championships over the following 5 days beginning Wednesday, will likely be devoid of prime stars, however the Athletics Federation of India hopes to launch contemporary faces as a substitute. Will go
The first athlete to win that elusive medal on the Olympics, Neeraj Chopra, who lately received gold on the Tokyo Games, will likely be absent for apparent causes, and so will finalist Kamalpreet Kaur. Participants within the ladies’s discus throw or Avinash Sable males’s 3000m steeplechase on the Tokyo National Stadium will likely be distinguished by their absence. Not to neglect the athletes collaborating within the 2020 Nairobi World Under-20 Athletics Championships additionally determined to overlook out on occasions akin to Shelly Singh, who received the silver medal within the lengthy soar and the blended relay group who received the bronze.
However, the season-ender and the eleventh nationwide degree occasion within the Olympic yr nonetheless attracted athletes from even institutional groups like Railways, Services, All India Police amongst 20-odd states. Railways comes right here with a document 87 athletes, together with 43 ladies, whereas the Seva Dal – solely males – is the second largest with 57 members and the All India Police will discipline 50 together with 24 feminine athletes.
Entries of a minimum of 122 athletes have been rejected for not reaching the qualifying requirements set by the AFI or arriving on the venue and not using a certificates of efficiency.
2018 Jakarta Asian Games gold medalist Arpinder Singh in males’s triple soar and Swapna Barman in heptathlon have been the largest attracts. Railways’ VK Ilakkiadasan and Andhra Pradesh’s Shanmuga Srinivas Nalubothu, who has achieved the quickest 200m sprinter this season, will enhance their rivalry.
The battle for supremacy between Mohammad Anees Yahia and Yugant Shekhar Singh within the males’s lengthy soar occasion will likely be eagerly watched.
The ladies’s lengthy soar will see a tricky struggle within the absence of World Under20 silver medalist Shaili Singh, Railways’ Priyanka Kerketta, Kerala’s Marina George, Tamil Nadu’s Sherin Abdul Ghafoor and host Nandini Agasara.
Sumi Kaliravan of Haryana, 4x400m blended relay group bronze medalist on the Nairobi World Meet, Tokyo Olympian Revathi Veeramani, Archa Susindran will likely be seen within the ladies’s 400m. Tokyo Games contributors in ladies’s 20km race Bhawna Jat, discus thrower Navjit Kaur Dhillon, sprinters Himashree Roy and C Kanimozhi are some acquainted names.
Tripura’s 14-year-old Priyanka Bhowmik would be the child of the meet, whereas 15-year-old Pavan Nagaraj from Karnataka, with a private better of 1.73m, will compete within the ladies’s 100m and excessive soar occasions respectively.
The National Open is the second nationwide degree competitors in Warangal in two years after the National Cross-Country Championships in January final yr. The organizers – Telangana Athletics Association and the district administration of Warangal – have left no stone unturned to make sure that the competitors is carried out following the Athletics Federation of India’s customary of working process and COVID-19 protocols.
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
