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National inter-zonal junior meet from today

Special Correspondent

JAMSHEDPUR: This could possibly be the final selection trials for the Indian team aspirants for the upcoming Commonwealth Youth Games at Pune in October. Those boys and girls under the age of 18 years would, therefore, like to put their best foot forward to realise the dream of representing their country when the 20th National inter-zonal junior athletics meet gets underway here on Sunday.

Finest facilities

The JRD Tata Sports Complex, one of the finest facilities in this part of the country, looked desolate this afternoon with only a few local athletes deciding to check out the track. The organising secretary of the meet, Madhukant Pathak, assured the couple of media personnel that the competitors would be provided with the best of facilities including photo finish camera and other electronic gadgets.

Despite his assuring words, not a single equipment was in place to support his claim.

Like any other junior meet, things happen only on the days of the competition and predictably all should be in place by the time the meet draws to a close on Tuesday!

Competitions will be held in four age categories: under-14, 16, 18 and 20 for boys and girls. The focus, however, will be on those who are likely to make it to the Pune Games.

New events

A number of new events have been introduced in different age groups.

For example, the under-18 girls will have pole vault while the under-16 group will have 200m, 1500m and 3000m while the 2000m held so far will be dropped.

There will be only medley relay in under-16 and 18 age groups, this being a new event for the latter age group.

The four legs in the medley relay will be 100, 200, 300 and 400 for a total of 1000m. The medley relays replace the conventional 4x100 and 4x400 relay events.

In the under-14 boys’ and girls’ age groups individual events (100m, 600m, high jump, long jump and shot put) have been reintroduced besides triathlon after nearly a decade. According to one of the technical delegates the individual events were part of the past editions of the inter-zonal junior meets before the federation introduced the pentathlon which later reduced it to a three-event triathlon.

The biggest headache for the organiser is the number of athletes who have arrived for the meet.

Pathak claims that as many as 1200 competitors have arrived so far while he expected about 850 athletes.

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