AFI advances Asian Games qualifier meet
NEWDELHI: Left red-faced after the Gold Coast Commonweath Games organisers rejected its three late entries, the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) has advanced the national interstate championships, its qualifying meet to meet the deadline for submission of entries for the Jakarata Asian Games (Aug 18-Sept 2).
The national athletics body said in a statement on Sunday that the meet, originally scheduled in Kolkata from July 15-18, has been shifted to Guwahati and will be held from June 26 to 29.
Holding the four-day competition in Guwahati will allow athletes to compete in weather expected to be far less humid than it would be in Kolkata.
FED CUP MUDDLE
The national body faced embarrassment after it held the Federation Cup – qualifying meet for the Gold Coast CWG in April – from March 5 to 8 despite knowing that the deadline for entires was March 7. While it had entered most names before the deadline, its late entries of high jumper Siddharth Yadav, who had met the qualifying mark, M Sreeshankar, who missed the mark by a centimetre but was considered a future prospect, and that of woman 400m runner, G Vijayakumari (for 4x400m relay) were rejected.
While AFI secretary CK Valson initially blamed the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), the nodal body for sending entries, the CWG organisers responded by saying the athletics body “chose to disregard” the deadline and its late entries won’t be accommodated.
AFI deputy chief coach, Radhakrishnan Nair, said on Sunday: “The last date for sending final entries (by name) to the organising committee for Asian Games is June 30. That is the reason we had to advance the national inter-state meet by almost a month. The competition will serve as the final selection trials for the Asian Games.
The AFI will be more lenient with qualifying standards considering the disruption in training advancing the meet could cause.
“We also felt the need to relax the qualifying standards in some of the events due to rescheduling of the competition and it has been done. We are confident that at the Asian Games, we will win more medals compared to the 2014 Incheon Asian Games,” Nair said.
Indian athletes will go abroad for training stints in May and return for the Guwahati meet.
Top athletes like high jumper Tejaswin Shankar, training in the US, and Neeraj Chopra, training in Germany, may be exempted from taking part. However, such athletes must achieve the qualifying mark in confirmatory trials to be held on August 15.