The Hindu : Sport / Athletics : Hope soars again for women’s relay team

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Hope soars again for women’s relay team

Special Correspondent

The IAAF has agreed to consider the timings recorded in the recent Asian GP series
The final list will be released on July 17

NEW DELHI: There is encouraging news for the Indian women’s 4x400m relay team. The International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) has agreed to consider the timings recorded by teams in the recent Asian Grand Prix series for Olympic relay qualification.

The IAAF has communicated to the Asian Athletics Association (AAA) that it would be prepared to consider the timings and also stated that the process of verification of the timings was currently in progress.

The AAA Secretary, Maurice Nicholas, speaking from Singapore on Monday, confirmed the receipt of the IAAF letter stating that the Asian Grand Prix timings were being considered after being ignored initially.

He expressed the hope that Asian teams would benefit from this decision of the IAAF.

The IAAF had recently stated that the Asian Grand Prix series would not count towards qualification since the organisers of the meets (AAA or the three meeting organisers) had not intimated the IAAF in advance about Olympic qualification relays being included in the programme.

IAAF had announced an approved list of competitions at the beginning of the year in which the Asian GP series did not figure.

The top 16 teams of the world in each relay are scheduled to compete in Beijing. The rankings are based on the average of the two best timings of a team recorded in designated meets in 2007 and this year.

The relay qualification closes on July 16. The IAAF will release the final list of qualified teams on July 17 and inform the respective countries.

National Olympic Committees will be expected to confirm entries by July 18 and vacant slots, if any, would be granted to reserve teams from the ranking list.

India 14th

In the July 1 list released by the IAAF that does not take into consideration the Asian GP timings, India is outside the top-20 bracket in the women’s 4x400m relay with an average of 3:33.59.

If the Asian GP meets in Bangkok and Korat are taken into consideration, India with timings of 3:32.55 and 3:28.29 will have an average of 3:30.42 and move into the 14th position.

China (currently 18th), if credited with its Korat timing of 3:29.75 (average 3:30.55), will come into the 15th slot, pushing Italy (currently 14th, average 3:30.98) into the last qualifying slot, leaving Brazil (3:31.11) and Canada (3:31.35) out of the top-16 list.

All these would be possible only if all the timings in the Asian GP meets were to be approved by the IAAF for qualification purposes.

The possibility of teams still jockeying for positions in meets yet to come off could be ruled out since there are no more listed qualifying meets left with women’s 4x400m relay as part of the programme, barring the World junior championships in Poland starting on Tuesday.

Junior timings are not expected to reach the levels set by the seniors except perhaps among the top teams like the U.S., Jamaica, Russia, etc. which are in any case among the top qualified teams for Beijing.

From the Central American and Caribbean championships that concluded in Cali, Colombia, on Sunday, the top three timings in the women’s 4x400m were returned by Cuba (3:27.97), Mexico (3:29.24) and the Bahamas (3:35.57). Cuba (seventh in the latest rankings) and Mexico (eighth) have better timings to their credit.

Curiously, Brazil did not compete in the women’s longer relay though at 15th rank it is not too well placed.

Meetings still left

Meetings that are still left among the qualifying competitions but scheduled to hold limited events are: Olympic meeting, Thessaloniki, Greece (July 9, men’s 4x100); Praga Academica (Prague, men’s 4x100); Vardinoyiannia, Rethymno, Greece (July 14, women’s 4x100) and Luzern Permit meeting (Luzern, Switzerland, July 16, men’s 4x100).

In a recent communication, the IAAF stated that there was little possibility of additional relay events being added to already-approved Area Permit meetings.

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