The Hindu : Sport / Athletics : Men's sprint relay team dropped

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Friday, Dec 01, 2006
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Men's sprint relay team dropped

NEW DELHI: The men's 4x100m relay team has been dropped from the Indian athletics team for the Asian Games.

The selection committee of the Athletics Federation of India (AFI), which met here on Thursday shortly after the trials for the sprint relay teams, decided to exclude the men since their performance was well below expected standards.

The team of Vishal Saxena, Amit Saha, Vilas Neelgund and A. Aravind clocked 40.08 in the first trial and did 39.84 in another race held after a 40-minute break. The team was aiming for 39.40s.

The fourth-place standard was 39.36s while the sixth-place norm was 40.02. The team had clocked 39.79s in the Chennai inter-State meet.

The women's team of H. M. Jyothi, Deepthi Jose, Nidhi Singh and Poonam Tomar clocked 46.27s and 45.44s in the two races.

The team had already been approved by the AFI and cleared by the Union Sports Ministry though it also has not come under the fourth-place standard of 44.59s.

The argument put forward in favour of the women's team was that with Chitra Soman, who is away with the rest of the 4x400m relay team in Muscat, coming in, the team should clock far better and could get into medal contention in Doha.

With the axing of the men's sprint relay squad, the strength of the athletics team now stands at 37, including 22 women. — Special Correspondent

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