She was desperately hunting for international meets to qualify for the last World athletics championships in Moscow. Now Tintu Luka has become one of the first athletes to make the grade for next year’s Worlds in Beijing.
The world body IAAF unveiled its new entry standards for the 2015 Worlds last week, opening the doors for qualification from October 1 this year, and 800m national record holder Tintu confirmed her berth on the very first day by winning the silver medal at the recent Asian Games with 1:59.19s. The qualification standard for the women’s 800m is 2:01s.
“That takes a lot of pressure off Tintu and me,” said a very happy P.T. Usha, Tintu’s coach, on Monday evening. “She was very desperate before the 2013 Worlds, but could not qualify in the 800m.”
Tintu was rather lucky. Had her event been held a day earlier at Incheon, she would have been anxiously searching for quality meets for the next 10 months to make the trip to Beijing.
O.P. Jaisha, who finished fourth in the women’s 5,000m with a personal best 15:18.30s (qualifying mark 15:20) at the recent Asiad, and Punjab’s national women’s 20km race walk record holder Khushbir Kaur, a silver medallist at Incheon, were among the early birds to qualify for the 2015 Worlds which will be held from August 22 to 30.
Unlucky SeemaHaryana’s discus thrower Seema Punia, the country’s lone gold medallist in an individual event at the Asiad, was among the unlucky athletes to not qualify despite a better performance than the entry standard as her event was held on September 29, two days before the qualification doors opened.
Race walkers K.T. Irfan, Gurmeet Singh, Ganapathi Krishnan, Basanta Bahadur Rana, Devender Singh in the 20km (qualifying mark 1:25.00s), and Sandeep Kumar and Manish Singh in the 50km (qualifying mark 4:06.00s) have all clocked better timings than the qualification standard.
The qualification period for the race walks (along with the 10,000m, marathon, relays and combined events) have been set from January 1, 2014, to August 10, 2015, which is the closing date for final entries.
For all other events, it is from October 1 this year to August 10, 2015.
B-standard droppedThe IAAF has introduced a new qualification system for the Beijing Worlds. The world body had two entry standards earlier (the ‘A’ standard where a maximum of three athletes from each country were allowed to compete in an event, and a ‘B’ standard where only one athlete could compete), but now it has just one qualification standard.
The area champions — the 21st Asian Championship at Wuhan in China in June, 2015, in India’s case — in all individual events (except the marathon) will get an automatic berth at the Worlds even if they don’t make the qualification standard but they will have to come within the three entries a country can field in an event.
A fourth athlete can compete if he or she is the reigning World champion or a Diamond Race or a Hammer Throw Challenge winner under the IAAF’s new ‘wild card’ system.
