The Hindu : Sport / Athletics : 41-member squad for Asian meet

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Friday, Jul 20, 2007
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41-member squad for Asian meet

Special Correspondent

India won 4 gold, 5 silver, 4 bronze at the last Asian meet
This year’s squad includes 17 women

NEW DELHI: The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) on Thursday named a 41-member team for participation in the Asian athletics championships to be held in Amman from July 25 to 29. The squad includes 17 women.

The AFI stated that it expected triple jumper Renjith Maheswary, long jumper Anju George, quarter-milers Manjeet Kaur and Chitra Soman, discus throwers Vikas Gowda and Krishna Poonia, middle distance runners Chatholi Hamza and Sinimole Paulose and distance runner Surendra Singh to “perform well” at Amman.

India had won four gold, five silver and four bronze medals at the last Asian meet in Incheon, South Korea, in 2005. Then, the AFI had fielded a 49-member team including 22 women.

Debate

There was a debate till the last minute about the two entries in women’s discus and eventually Krishna Poonia, who won the bronze at the Doha Asian Games, and Harwant Kaur were chosen and National record holder Seema Antil dropped. Seema had not been doing well in training of late.

Shot putter Navpreet Singh, fourth at the Doha Asiad and silver winner at Incheon, has been chosen despite missing all the competitions this season. His performance in training sessions was taken into consideration.

The rest of the team selected itself.

Like last time and at the Doha Games, the women’s 4x400m relay team should be the best bet for a gold medal for India, with Renjith, Chitra, Sinimole and Anju not far behind in the race for a top finish.

The team:

Men: B.G. Nagraj, Ajay Kumar, Sameer Mon, Ritesh Anand and Vilas Neelgund (4x100m); K.M. Binu, Joseph Abraham, Vinay Choudhary, S.K. Mortaza, Sarish Paul and Kuldev Singh (4x400m); R. Rajeev and Francis Sagayaraj (800m); Chatholi Hamza and Sajeesh Joseph (1500m); Surendra Singh and Sunil Kumar (5000m); Santosh Kumar (10,000m); Hari Sankar Roy (high jump); Renjith Maheswary and Bibu Mathew (triple jump); Saurabh Vij and Navpreet Singh (shot put); Vikas Gowda (discus); Nirbhay Singh (hammer) and Jora Singh and P.J. Vinod (decathlon).

Women: Manjeet Kaur, Chitra K. Soman, Iylene Samantha, Mandeep Kaur, Anu Mariam Jose and Sini Jose (4x400m); Sinimole Paulose and Sushma (800m, 1500m); Preeja Sreedharan (5000m, 10,000m); Anju Bobby George (long jump); Krishna Poonia a nd Harwant Kaur (discus) and J.J. Shobha and Susmita Singha Roy (heptathlon).

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