Top stars for national meet with selection for Asiad at stake

Chennai, Nov 1 (UNI) The threat of a north east monsoon rains, resuming after a day's abatement has not dampened the spirits of the 800 athletes including top stars like Anju George and Vikas Gowda, who will be seen in action in the four day 46th senior national atheltic championship to be held at the Nehru stadium here from tomorrow to November 5.

The event is being conducted by the Chennai Ports Sports Council under the auspices of the Tamil Nadu Athletic Association(TNAA), Presdient W I Davaram told newspersons here today.

He said the rains would be no hurdle for the track events but the field events especially discus throw and shotput could be disrupted with the landing areas prone to damage.

However, the meet assumes immense significance with the squad for the Doha Asian Games next month slated to be announced on November 5 by Athletic Association of India (AAI).

Already ace long jumper Anju George, who is focussing on Beijing Olympics, heptatheltes J J Shobha, Soma Biswas and Sushmita Singh Roy, Seema Antil, Krishna Poonia-discus, Manjeet Kaur-400 M,4x400 M Relay, Pinki Pramnik- 400 M, 800 M,4x400 M Relay, Shanthi-800 M, 1500 M, Chitra Soman, Geetha, Ashik Beevi, H M Jyothi, Vikas Gowda- shotput, discus, Navpreet Singh-shotput, Harishankar Roy-high jump, A Arvind, Anil Kumar, Vilal Nelagund, Vshal Saxena, Ajay, Sandeep Sarkaria-4x100M Relay, Bhupinder Singh, Satbir Singh, Joseph Abraham, P S Sreejith, P Shankar and Vinish-4x400 M Relay have achieved the qualifying mark for the Doha Asian Games.

But they will be expected live up to their form. Only If they perform way below the qualifying marks of third place timings and distance of the last Asian Games and Asian Track&Field meet, whichever is higher, that these athletes would be dropped, Mr Davaram and international technical offical C K Valson said.

Mr Valson said a few more athletes like M Ranjit and Amarjeet, both triple jumpers are close to achieving the Doha qualifying mark.

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