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Friday, Sep 29, 2006
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Asian Games build-up begins for athletes

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Indian athletes always perk up close to a major multi-discipline games. The Doha Asian Games are not far away and it is time for the athletes to come out of the mediocre rut and post some top marks on the board.

The throwers will have a chance to do that as the second competitive phase of the Indian season starts here with the AFI_Salwan international throws meet at the Salwan Public School here on Friday. With performances on the track not really measuring up to expectations this season, the Athletics Federation of India is naturally pinning its hopes on the throwers in the Asian Games context.

In a drawn-out season like the current year when the action started in March and should stretch right into the second week of December, it is always difficult to maintain form at optimum levels. Yet, a semblance of consistency should be expected from the leading stars who are gearing towards the Asian Games.

The top women discus throwers, Seema Antil, Krishna Poonia and Harwant Kaur, are just back from a training stint in Ukraine. Reports from the camp suggest that Seema and Krishna are in fine form.

Seema had a season best 60.56m for the silver in the Melbourne Commonwealth Games in March, but an unspecified illness kept her out of the first two legs of the Asian Grand Prix in May before she took the third place in the last leg at Pune with a run-of-the-mill 50.89m.

Chinese Sun Taifeng, who recorded a personal best 61.68m for the third place at the National championships back home last month, should stretch Seema here. Croatian Vera Begic is a 60-metre-plus thrower and there could be a keen contest with Krishna also capable of coming close to the 60-metre mark.

The focus will also be on shot putter Navpreet Singh, a medal contender in the Asian Games. From a high of 19.84 in the Bangalore leg of the Asian Grand Prix series, Navpreet has come down to 18.43m, the mark he had for the seventh place in the World Cup in Athens less than a fortnight ago.

A partial prelude to the Asian Games shot put competition, minus the Asian champion Khalid Habash Al-Suwaidi of Qatar and the leading Asian this season, Saudi Arabian Sultan Mubarak Al-Hebshi (20.04), can be had here since Chinese Zhang Qi will be clashing for the fourth time this season with Navpreet. The two had met in the three Asian GP legs with the 21-year-old Chinese scoring twice.

Though US-based Vikas Gowda is expected to be the second Indian shot putter at Doha, the inclusion of Satyender Kumar as the No 2 behind Navpreet here only shows the slump in standards. Ranvijay Singh, who led last year's lists with his 19.89m in the National throws meet, putted a pitiable 16.76m at the all-India Railways meet here three weeks ago when Satyender won the gold with 18.02. Kuldeep Singh Mann, the third-ranked Indian last year, with 18.84m, has not crossed 17 metres this season.

If the beginning of the season was marked by controversies and uncertainties following surprise raids by the testing teams of the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA), the situation has remained tense since then with WADA continuing to show an unusual interest in the activities of the Indian athletes.

Further checks cannot be ruled out. How well the athletes cope with the situation to come up with top-level performances will provide a clue to India's fortunes in the Asian Games.

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