Jaybhai, Nisha to lead Mah in national cross country

Pune, Mar 9 (UNI) Long-distance ace Dattatraya Jaybhai of Pune and Nisha Wankhede of Nagpur will lead Maharashtra men and women's teams respectively in the Federation Cup national cross country championship which gets underway at Nashik from March 12.

Maharashtra Amateur Athletic Association (MAAA) honorary general secretary Pralhad Sawant, while announcing a 39-member squad here today, hoped that rejuvenated squad would perform creditably despite tough opposition from the Services and the Railways.

Gajanan Patil will be the Chef-de-Mission while SAI coach U L Saini and former international Bhagyashree Bille will be the managers for the men's and women's teams.

The men will have two races of 12 kms and 4 kms while boys under-20 will have a race of 8 kms. The women's races will be of 8 and 4 kms while girls under-20 will have a 6-km race.

Following are the teams : Men (12 km): Dattatraya Jaybhai (Pune), K K Laylu (Pune), Rajesh Ghodekar (Pune), Deepak Kumar (Pune), Parsuram Bhoi (Kolhapur), Jaipal Bhoyar (Bhandara).

Men (4 km): Champatlal (Pune), Prakash Bhosale (Pune), Dilip Jadhav (Pune), Ashok Kumbhar (Sangli), Nitin Rathod (Thane), Ravindra Khade (Mumbai Suburban).

Boys under-20 (8 km): Deepak Kumbhar (Kolhapur), Shabir Patel (Satara), Bhau Lambar (Pune), Abhijit Bite (Pune), Yuvraj Gurav (Sangli), Bhaskar Nalavate (Satara).

Women (8 km): Nisha Wankhede (Nagpur), Mrunal Chitre (Nagpur), Manjula Patil (Sangli), Dipa Phate (Pune), P Suma (Mumbai City), Kamla Firoda (Amravati).

Women (4 km): Rashmi Gurnule (Nagpur), Dimpal Naidu (Nagpur), Aarju Khatun (Mumbai Suburban), Archana Narle (Sangli), Prajakta Kad (Pune), Sumitra Galwali (Kolhapur).

Girls under-20 (6 km): Lalita Babar (Satara), Nikita Nagpure (Ahmednagar), Seema Nahid (Nagpur), Reshma Patil (Pune), Manju Bijgane (Nagpur), Shaila Shinde (Sangli).

UNI IS MAZ AY DS1535