Competitive athletics will acquire a new dimension when the third and final part of the Asian Grand Prix athletics championship unfolds at the JN Stadium here on Wednesday. Its significance lies in the city playing host to a competition of international stature for the first time after the 1985 SAF Games.
A more relevant point is to evaluate the benefits to the national stars, now in the preparatory mode for the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Delhi and the Asian Games in Guangzhou this year. Designed primarily for trainees to test their progress, the three Indian GP meets were programmed to precede the AGP competitions.
Cause for concern
That the two of the three IGP events had to be abandoned because of insufficient entries and forced to be clubbed with the main AGP is a cause for concern.
The athletes with ‘star' tags often miss out on the national level meets citing one reason or the other, leaving everyone, most of all, the organising units, in a state of frustration.
The truancy level of established athletes is now assuming alarming proportions, leading many to wonder whether there is something beyond the oft-repeated clichés of form, injury concerns and what not.
While the athletes are prepared to go in droves for training and camping abroad, there is a clear inhibition of performing before the home crowd even in popular competitions, in which participation is declared as mandatory by the federation.
Against this backdrop, an assessment needs to be made of the GPs held thus far here. Though the competition levels were not extraordinary by international standards, the fact that India claimed two in the first GP in Pune and four gold medals in the second in Bangalore is some consolation.
Two competitors stand out for special mention. The showing of the strapping triple jumper Renjith Meheswary has been exemplary. He almost outstripped his best, touching 17m at Bangalore, his second best on Indian soil after the 17.04 at Guwahati. The other is discus thrower, Krishna Poonia.
A noteworthy aspect however has been the impressive performances by the long jumpers, M.A. Prajusha (6.55m), Mayookha Johny (6.49m) and Reshmi Bose (6.46m), all registering their personal bests, perhaps for the first time in Indian athletics history, in Bangalore.
Tintu's gold run
A lot of focus, predictably, is on Tintu Luka, trained professionally by P.T. Usha. Identified as a potential medallist in the higher echelons of international competitions, Luka's silver medal in Pune against Kazakhstan star Margarita Matsko is a bit of a disappointment.
Usha feels that Luka is a fluent runner, but the endurance of the Kazakh won the day in Pune. Tintu is expected to overcome the strategic failure on Wednesday afternoon.
The performance of shot putter Om Prakash, who achieved his personal best at the same venue last year with a distance of 20.02 metres, will be watched with interest.
Of the foreign participants, focus will be on Uzbek sprinter Guzel Khubbieva, whose eight victories in the 100 metres in AGP competitions confer on her a celebrity status. Toea Wisil of Papua New Guinea is another runner to be followed in the meet.
A contest between Uzbek's Svetlana Radzivil and Kazakhstan's Anna Ustinova will be the highlight in the women's high jump. Both cleared 1.93m at Bangalore with the former winning it on count back.
Chinese sprinter Zhang Peiming and Sri Lankan Shehan Ambepitiya will vie for honours in the 100 metres for men. Shehan is the gold medallist in the Commonwealth Youth Games.
AGP events: Men: 100m, 400m, 800m, 110m hurdles, high jump, long jump, triple jump, shot put.
Women: 100m, 400m, 800m, 100m hurdles, high jump, triple jump, discus throw and shot put.
