The Hindu : AAFI identifies 12 events for Olympics

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 22, 2004

Sport

Sport - Athletics

AAFI identifies 12 events for Olympics

PUNE, FEB. 21. The Amateur Athletic Federation of India (AAFI) has identified 12 events including eight in the women's section as the likely ones in which Indian athletes would be able to qualify for- the Athens Olympic Games.

The events are: Men: 800m, shot put, discus and 4x400m relay; women: 400m, 800m, 1500m, high jump, long jump, discus, heptathlon and 4x400m.

The AAFI Secretary, Lalit Bhanot, re-elected along with Suresh Kalmadi as president, at the annual general meeting here on Saturday, said that a training programme for the Olympic probables had already been finalised. The athletes would be provided sufficient opportunities to qualify for the Olympics, he said.

The athletes would be sent for an European tour as well as entered in the Asian Grand Prix series towards their build-up for the Olympics.

The meeting decided to do away with the word `amateur' from the federation's name, in keeping with the practice at the international level. Thus, from April 1 this year, the federation would be known as the Athletics Federation of India.

About 26 competitions would be organised, in different sections, during the course of the year. It was decided to drop the under-22 age group and the National meet in this category, for it was felt that it had become redundant since the gap between the juniors and the seniors had narrowed down. A National youth championship (under-18) would instead be organised, with the first such meet to be held at Jamshedpur from November 14 to 16.

The federation would intensify its efforts to provide training to young athletes by expert foreign coaches and for this purpose several academies would be started in different parts of the country. An academy for throws had already started functioning in Delhi while a middle and long distance academy would be opened in Jamshedpur next month, Mr. Bhanot said.

The meeting also endorsed the federation's bid to host the 2009 World championships in Delhi and also stated that the AAFI was fully geared to organise the 13th World half marathon event in Delhi on October 3.

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