Sport - Athletics   

An Open with several 'shut cases'

By K. P. Mohan

NEW DELHI SEPT. 6. The Union Sports Ministry and the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) have taken the wind out of the Amateur Athletic Federation of India (AAFI) sails by naming and approving the athletics squad for the Busan Asian Games, well ahead of an official announcement by the federation.

The 42nd Open National athletic championships, sponsored by the Delhi Development Authority, to come off at the Nehru Stadium here from Friday, has thus become all but irrelevant in the race towards `Asiad tickets'. Unless, of course, the AAFI deletes a few names from the approved list on the ground that such athletes had not met the requisite qualifying standards or were unfit.

Originally scheduled to announce the squad for Busan at the end of the National circuit meet in Ludhiana on August 28, the AAFI had postponed the exercise in order to give one more chance to a few athletes to try and reach the prescribed norms. That chance was to come in the Open.

Now, with even those who have not made the grade being approved by the Government, much of the interest in this meet has been lost, notwithstanding the possibility of a few more reaching the norms and getting the nod.

The AAFI had gone about its selection procedure rather meticulously but fumbled on the `home straight', so to say. It could have called a halt at Ludhiana and gone ahead with the final selection as originally planned or else could have impressed upon the IOA and the ministry not to release the list lest that should spoil the last meet of the season prior to the Games.

Of course, as the AAFI Secretary, Mr. Lalit Bhanot, put it "the final list of entries will only be known when the AAFI selects the team.'' But then, the embarrassment could have been avoided, not to speak of the confusion. The selection is now scheduled for September 10.

The composition of all the relay teams, apart from their qualification, is pending and so too a few individual qualifications and their fate.

With the Sports Ministry being at its liberal best in clearing six athletes each, there will be quite a jockeying for positions. There could still be a change or two from the relay teams already approved by the ministry.

None of the relay teams has made the grade and yet the ministry has cleared all but one of them.

The odd one out, the men's 4x100m team. There should be no arguments about the 4x400m teams in both sections since they are medal contenders.

In fact though trials had been scheduled for the 4x400m teams also, Mr. Bhanot said on Friday that the longer relay teams might not be asked to run. After all, the runners would be running the relays in the main championships, too, apart from competing in the individual events.

The fitness factor will come into play in the final selection of the women's 4x100m team while for the male sprinters it will be important to clock a time close to the qualifying mark of 39.30s.

With Rachita Mistry, one of the 4x100m runners already cleared by the Government, being rested from this meet because of a muscle strain, she will not have the chance to compete in the trials. Mr. Bhanot said that the selection committee had already decided that Rachita would have to run at least three races to prove her fitness before she was included in the team.

As for the men's sprint quartet, Sandeep Sarkaria, who was part of the team that clocked a 39.81 here on August 26, is also out of action with a muscle strain.

Piyush Kumar, Anand Menezes and Anil Kumar were the others in that team that chased the qualifying mark of 39.31s. The two other certainties in the team are Clifford Joshua and Sanjay Ghosh, provided of course the team gets the approval.

Among the individual cases, two prominent contenders are hammer thrower Pramod Kumar Tiwari and javelin thrower Jagdish Bishnoi. Tiwari has a best of 66.32m against the norm of 68.50 laid down by the federation. The bronze in the recent Asian championships in Colombo, went for 69.25m.

Bishnoi, a disappointment in Colombo, has inched towards the qualifying mark of 78.00m with a season best 76.00 at the last meet at Ludhiana. There could be debate over his selection.

There should be no such questions against Gulab Chand, though.

Given the go-ahead by the ministry, he has also not met the qualifying standard. So far he did not have an event to try for a norm on his comeback after nearly two years of injury-forced absence.

Here he has been entered in both the 5000 metres and the 10,000 metres, the latter event scheduled for the first morning.

Even if Gulab fails to reach the norm here, the `experts' should be looking at the way he runs rather than strictly sticking to the standards, quite stiff in both 5000m and 10,000m, at 14:10.00 and 29:12.00.

He had won a bronze each in the 1998 Asiad and the 2000 Asian championships against tougher opposition and there is no doubting his calibre even after his lay-off. His fitness should, however, be ascertained before he is included in the team.

Outside of the selection topic, the meet should provide an opportunity for those who are fine-tuning themselves in the climactic run-up towards the Busan Games to show their improvement after the training stint in Ukraine and Belarus. Nothing much was evident in the last two circuit meets barring in a few events.

K. M. Beenamol, who clocked a personal best of 2:02.01 for the 800 metres in the last circuit meet here on August 26, could be expected to look for a better time than her season best of 51.47s in the 400 metres. The same should be true of Paramjeet Singh, the National record holder in the men's 400m, though in a different context.

Paramjeet has not made the grade (45.70s) in the one-lap event. Nor has he won a race this season.

Yet, he has been named as one of the two individual entries in the Asian Games and approved by the Government. Obviously, the coaches have abundant faith in him and he is tipped to be the best yet in this event, come Asian Games.

Mr. Bhanot said that in case India was to compete in the individual 400m event in Busan, the entries would be that of Ramachandran, recovering from a fever and missing the Open, and Paramjeet. Otherwise the runners would concentrate just on the relay.

Of added interest here would be the presence of Anju George, the long jumper who won a bronze for the country at the Manchester Commonwealth Games.

She had skipped the last two meets in her bid to concentrate on her Asiad preparations but has now decided that a competition to wind up with, before the Games, won't be a bad idea after all.

Her own National mark of 6.74m could be under threat here.

To provide her the challenge will be Pramila Ganapathy, returning to competition after illness. The extended monsoon could be the only damper.

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