AFI lauds race-walker Priyanka’s performance in Tokyo Olympics
LUCKNOW: The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) has described young race walker Priyanka Goswami’s performance at the Tokyo Olympics as excellent.
National record holder Priyanka Goswami from Uttar Pradesh was among the leading pack around the halfway mark, but eventually finished 17th while compatriot Bhawna Jat ended 32nd in the women’s 20km race walk event of the Olympics.
The praise for came from AFI at its first-ever review meeting after the Tokyo Olympics in Jaipur on Tuesday. “Performance of each athlete who participated in Olympics 2020 was reviewed at the meeting. The performance of Priyanka Goswami in 20 km race walking was found excellent,” UP Athletics Association’s secretary PK Srivastava said on Wednesday.
“It’s a matter of great pride for the UP Athletics Association that she (Priyanka) was praised by AFI officials, and I believe that she would have done much better, if she had international exposure before the Olympics,” he said.
“After setting the national record at Ranchi in February, Priyanka couldn’t go out of the country for exposure. The same was the case with javelin throwers from Uttar Pradesh Annu Rani and Shivpal Singh,” he added.
The 25-year-old Priyanka clocked 1 hr 32 minute 36 seconds, well outside her personal best of 1:28:45, which she had come up with during the National Open Race Walk Championships in February. The event was held under hot and humid conditions. Priyanka was in the leading pack from the beginning and was the front- runner when she crossed the 8km mark, but slowly she dropped down.
The performance of each athlete was evaluated. It was found that the athletes who qualified on the basis of their past performances could not even achieve their personal best.
In fact, they were much below their own performances. Some of them were Srishankar in long jump, KT Irfan in racewalking, Shivpal Singh and Annu Rani in javelin throw and the 4x400m mixed relay team. “This evaluation exposed the coaches who, for their personal benefit, try to hide weaknesses and problems faced by athletes,” said Srivastava.
Srivastava also informed that AFI at its meeting also decided that junior competitions and training programmes will be redesigned and restructured. “The focus will be on the training of potential junior athletes at the grass root level for identified events.”
He also said that the expert committee identified events like 400m, long jump, triple jump, javelin, race walking, shot put and discus throw on which special emphasis will be given for preparing the teams for the year 2022.
Uttar Pradesh, along with Kerala, Karnataka, Haryana and Punjab, has been identified for the talent search to start with for the junior athletes in above mentioned events. The athletes selected by search team will be subjected to continuous and regular a training programme under event-specific foreign and Indian coaches.
“The National Inter District Athletics Meet, which is the world’s largest programme, will be made more meaningful with the objective of talent hunt and will be implemented from this year. The foreign coaches will be appointed for all these identified events,” he said.