Field events look more promising for Indians
Seven Indians
had made it to London last time in field events_Renjith Maheswary (triple
jump), Om Prakash Singh (shot put) and Vikas Gowda (discus) among men and
Sahana Kumari (high jump), Mayookha Johny (triple jump) and Krishna Poonia and
Seema Antil (discus) among women.
This time too the field events
look more promising for more qualifiers to emerge, in horizontal jumps in
particular. The standards in men’s high jump (2.29m) and pole vault (5.70m) are
well beyond the present Indian crop. The
same holds true in women’s high jump (1.93m) and pole vault (4.50m).
In men’s long
jump, both Kumaravel Premkumar and Ankit Sharma had 8.04m last year.
Premkumar who took the South Asian Games
title at 7.62m also won the silver at the Asian Indoor Championships with an
encouraging 7.92m, an indoor National record. He has six marks of eight metres
or better with the National record of 8.09m having come in 2013.
The long jump
standard of 8.15m may still look out of reach for the Indians but both
Premkumar and Sharma are reportedly gearing up for the challenge ahead. One
cannot rule out anything at this point.
One would have
expected both Renjith Maheswary and Arpinder Singh to have qualified for Rio in
triple jump by now. Both are waiting, however. The standard is 16.85m. Renjith
came up to 16.45m in the South Asian Games at Guwahati. The last he crossed
16.85m was in 2013 in Chennai when he did 16.98m in the Inter-State meet.
Arpinder ‘s best
and National record of 17.17m (12th best in the world that year) came at
Lucknow in 2014. His second best is 16.84m in 2013. In 2015 he could touch only
16.41m for the silver in the National Games. This year he has jumped 15.80m
indoors, during his training stint abroad. It would be hard for him to make the
cut.
Mayookha shows encouraging form
In women’s
horizontal jumps, Mayookha has started to make some sort of a comeback. Her 6.43m at the SAG is still well short of the
standard of 6.70m but her 14.00m in triple jump in the Asian Indoors is just
15cm shy. She had missed making the London Games trip narrowly in long jump but
made it in triple jump where she failed to progress to the final and finished 22nd
eventually. Her National record of 14.11m at the Asian Championships in Kobe in
2011 had held her surpass the ‘B’ standard then. Since 2011 when she also had a
14.02 in Wujiang, China, this is the first time the Kerala woman has touched
14m.
In women’s
discus, India’s forte for several years, Krishna Poonia who finished seventh in
London has not competed since 2014. Her best year happened to be 2012 when she
set the national record of 64.76m (Seema Antil’s 64.84 in Kiev in 2004 is not
recognized by the AFI but is listed as national record by the IAAF). That was
the last time she crossed 60 metres. Having undergone a surgery and having been
engaged in mainstream politics Poonia’s comeback to topflight athletics looks
uncertain.
Seema Antil has
once again moved to the US for training as she did in 2012 towards her Olympic
qualification and preparation. She did reasonably well that year with a best of
62.60m and a 13th place finish in the Olympics (later upgraded to 12th because of the doping disqualification of Russian Darya Pishchalnikova who had originally finished second). Her best since has been the
61.61m in Glasgow for the CWG silver. She can still hope to reach 61.00m needed
to make it to Rio though her top three marks of 63-metre-plus came 12 years ago.
Chopra goes past 80 metres
In javelin,
18-year-old Neeraj Chopra has registered some sensational marks last year as
well as this year. He is now the joint National record holder with Rajender
Singh Dalvir at 82.23m. The Olympic standard of 83.00m looks within reach for
Chopra if not for Dalvir who has been recouping from an injury. If the optimism expressed by the Australian coach Garry Calvert is any indication the young man from Chandigarh looks
destined to scale greater heights.
The task in women’s javelin for Annu Rani and Suman
Devi looks far tougher than that for the men. The standard of 62.0m is stiff
when compared to the National record of 59.53m in the name of Annu Rani. Suman
Devi has also crossed 59 metres this year.
There is an abundance of talent to pick from among
the racewalkers. Four additional walkers
among men have made it in the 20km event from the National racewalking
championships. They include 2012 Olympic 10th-place finisher K. T. Irfan who
has come back from injuries. Others are
K. Ganapathi, Devender Singh and Neeraj. As pointed out earlier one will have
to verify the status of the National championships as a qualifying competition for
Rio before being certain about additional qualifiers. In any case only three
can make it to Rio in each event.
Earlier three had made it in 20km, Gurmeet Singh,
Baljinder Singh and Chandan Singh, and two had clinched in both 20km and 50km,
Sandeep Kumar and Manish Rawat. Among women, National record holder Khushbir
Kaur and Sapna had already made the grade in 20km. There were no fresh claimants
for a place in the team from the National meet.
(Concluded)
No comments:
Post a Comment