City-based athletics coach Vasanthakumar has been chosen to train the hurdle runners who hope to compete in the forthcoming Asian Athletics Championships to be held in June.
Athletics Federation of India has written a letter to the Director of Department of Youth Empowerment and Sports, Bangalore, to depute him to the ongoing National Junior Athletics Coaching Camp being held at Sonepat in Haryana. This is the sixth time that Mr. Vasanthakumar is being asked to attend a national camp to prepare athletes for important sports meets.
The 48-year-old District Sports School Athletics Coach, who left for Sonepat on Sunday night, said he has previously trained athletes such as G. Gayathri, Siddarth Thingalaya and Durgeshkumar who have won medals in international events.
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In the Sonepat camp, four girls, including Karnataka’s Meghana Shetty, are expected to participate. Meghana Shetty’s performance is 14.88 seconds in 100m hurdles. There are five hurdle runners scheduled to take part in the camp. The only other athlete selected for the camp from Karnataka is Saleem Sheikh, a 100m runner. His best performance so far has been 10.95 seconds.
The Mangalore coach, who has a diploma in coaching from the National Institute of Sports, is among the eight coaches selected to train 54 athletes in the camp that will go up to July. He is the only one from South India.