BHUBANESWAR: The mercury is touching 40-degree Celsius. The humidity is hovering around 85 per cent. And the athletes are sweating it out, literally at the Kalinga Sports Complex here on Wednesday, giving finishing touches to their strides, jumps and rhythm before the big five days beginning Thursday at the Inter-state Senior National Athletics Championships. It’s going to be an early start because of the heat.
With the Asian Games in Hangzhou in September-October in mind, all athletes, including top stars have converged on Odisha Capital. The long list for the athletes has already been made and this will be the final event before finalising the names. Long jump star M Sreeshankar and his father and coach S Murali are there, fresh from a third finish at the Paris Diamond League. He will renew his rivalry with holder Jeswin Aldrin, who with his jump of 8.42m created a new national record and also is the world leader right now.
Men’s triple jump is another event that is expected to be close. National record holder and Commonwealth Games gold medallist Praveen Chitravel and Eldhose Paul, the CWG silver medallist are expected to light up the triple jump arena. Though Paul is struggling right now, Abdulla Aboobacker and young Prabhu Thiruman who has crossed the 17m mark will give them good contest. Rising long jump star Shaili Singh will be looking to add a few more centimeters to her personal best of 6.76m. Her coach Robert Bobby George is trying to gather as many points as possible to qualify for the World Championships in Budapest. They will be reaching on June 16.
One contest that the Athletics Federation of India officials and selectors would like to keep a close eye on will be the 400m women’s. After Hima Das not being able to run 400m after sustaining a mysterious back injury soon after wining gold and silver at the 2019 Asian Games, all eyes will be on the next gen runners. The famed 4x400m relay team needs to be rebuilt after certain members failing dope tests and some out of form.
Priya Mohan, who won the Federation Cup this year, U-20 Worlds bronze medallist Rupal Chaudhary are expected to give stiff competition to up and coming young star Rezoana Mallick Heena, who recently won the U-20 Asian championships gold. She will be eager to give her best in the senior level. Aishwarya Mishra and Anjali Devi, who has been quite sporadic in her participation in the last few seasons too have entered. If the youngsters do well, AFI will have less headache for 4x400m women’s team for Asian Games.
Though Neeraj Chopra is missing, men’s javelin throw has already produced above 80m throws this season with Rohit Yadav, DP Manu and Sachin Yadav already achieving it here in the country. Shivpal Singh, who served a reduced doping ban, will be trying to breach 80m this season and get ready for Asiad.
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