Mayookha Johny will not be competing in long jump in the World Indoor athletics championships to be held in Istanbul, Turkey, from March 9 to 11.
The 23-year-old National indoor record holder in long jump will be able to compete only in triple jump in which she had qualified for the Istanbul meet and the London Olympics with a jump of 14.11m at the Asian championships in Kobe last year.
Mayookha is yet to attain the Olympic qualifying mark of 6.65m in long jump. That happened to be the qualification mark for the World Indoors also.
The Kerala girl, who has a personal best of 6.64m, was looking forward to making an attempt at Olympic long jump qualification in the Turkish capital, but the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) has been told that she would not get an entry.
There is a provision in the rules to allow a country with no qualified athletes in any event to enter a male and/or a female athlete each in an event with the proviso that an entry in a field event would be at the discretion of the IAAF technical delegates.
India also had shot putter Om Prakash Singh as a qualified athlete for World Indoors but he has not been entered.
The AFI Director, M. L. Dogra said on Sunday that since Mayookha had qualified in triple jump, she could not be entitled to a “free entry” in long jump even though India had entered just her in the championships.
“We were looking forward to competing in long jump in Istanbul,” said Mayookha's coach Shyam Kumar on Sunday.
Mayookha was expected to go for the long jump qualification for Olympics in the Asian indoor championships in Hangzhou, China, last month, but skipped it in preference to a meet in Ludwigshafen, Germany, where she jumped 6.44m, an indoor National record.
Shyam Kumar said that since she would not be having a long jump entry, she would utilise this opportunity to compete in triple jump hoping to do her best.
The women's triple qualification round is on March 9 and the final the next day.
Mayookha and Shyam Kumar are scheduled to leave on March 7.
The coach said that from now on, during the course of this season, Mayookha would be concentrating on long jump in which, according to his assessment, she stood a better chance than in triple jump in the London Games.
Of course she has to first aim for the Olympic qualification mark in long jump (‘A' standard 6.75m is needed for a country to enter two athletes in this event), having failed to touch that distance in three indoor meets in Germany where she had been training under coach Jorge Ramlow.
Shyam Kumar said Ramlow was in the process of correcting Mayookha's technique in order to bring in the optimum speed going into her take-off.
He said this was going to take time and the German coach had opined that whatever she would manage at this stage would solely be on the strength of her talent.
He said they were looking forward to starting the outdoor season in Europe from May and hoped to compete in four to five meets in the run-up to the Olympics.
