Indian Athletics Thread ...

[ankit1407]

So, 3 of our Asiad gold medallists are there. Hima Das withdrew due to injury. I don't know what Shot putter Tejinder Toor is not there.

Tejinder's father passed away couple of days back...

[sameerph]

Oh, yes. I had read about it. Forgot.

[depleter]

So, 3 of our Asiad gold medallists are there. Hima Das withdrew due to injury. I don't know what Shot putter Tejinder Toor is not there.

Tejinder's father passed away couple of days back...

That's not the reason he is not there though. We are part of Asia Pacific team and Damien Birkinhead of Australia and the legendary Tomas Walsh of NZ are better than him.

[sameerph]

Chitra finished a creditable 4th in womens 1500M in a slow race with 4.18.45 while Jinson Johnson finished 7th in 800M with a timing of 1:48.44 .

Their timings were slower than Asiad but hope the experience of running in a world class field helps them.

Others will compete today including Neeraj in javelin. Neeraj has to contend with Olympic champion Thomas Rohler and world silver medalist Jakub Vadlejch.

[sameerph]

Arpinder Singh wins bronze in triple jump with 16.59. First Indian to win a medal at inter continental cup.

Distance is not great. But, winning a medal in international competition is good.

[sameerph]

Not a good day for Neeraj Chopra. He could only throw 80.24M and finished 5th. Only 3 throws and his third throw was beyond 85 meters but landed just outside the arena and was considered a foul. Anyway, end of a good season for him with Commonwealth and Asiad golds. Hope he comes back stronger next year to challenger the top Europeans.

Jinson Johnson end on 6th place in 1500m in 3:41.72s. His timing was better than his Asian games gold winning time. He says that he will now concentrate only on 1500M which seems better for him than 800. But, will have to cut down by about 10 sec to have any of a final at Tokyo.

[arjun2761]

Overall OK performance by our athletes considering that they must have peaked at the Asiad. While the performances were worse in many instances, they were in the range of a normal non-peak effort.

[prasen9]

Swapna Barman has 12 toes and is getting a special shoe. Adidas making a special shoe for Barman

[depleter]

Arpinder singh is expecting 4-5 medals from athletics in tokyo....

https://www.dnaindia.com/sports/report- ... gh-2664861

[arjun2761]

Good to see the optimism! However, given that we haven't won an athletics medal yet, winning our first medal would be quite an achievement. Neeraj Chopra looks like the best bet but he has to continue to improve over the next couple of years to get there...

[kujo]

and Hima Das.... assuming she remains healthy and maintains her improvement curve on the 400m timings....

[sameerph]

This is an article with views on our 5 young talented athletes-

Vision 2020: a look at India's best hopes for an athletics medal at the Tokyo Olympics

[sameerph]

At the national open Athletics championships in Bhubaneswar, 19 year old from Kerala, M Sreeshankar jumped an impressive 8.20 mts. to create a new national record.

This jump would have comfortably won him a gold at world under 20 championships held earlier this year where Sreeshankar could not participate due to injury. ( and also silver at Asian games).

Quite excited about young talent coming up in Indian athletics - 20 year old Neeraj Chopra, 19 year olds Sreeshankar and Tejswin Shankar and 18 year Hima Das are all at or near top of the world leaders in their age groups.

[Mugundan]

Sreeshankar did participate in World Juniors at Tampere, where he finished 6th with 7.75m. He missed Commonwealth Games because of surgery for appendicitis and was recouping when WJR came. He did well to reach 7.95 at Asian Games but that was not good enough for a medal, only for 6th place. He said today he felt bad missing medals at WJR and AG, both of which, he felt, were in his capacity. He looks destined to go far in the coming years.

[arjun2761]

This is an article with views on our 5 young talented athletes-

Vision 2020: a look at India's best hopes for an athletics medal at the Tokyo Olympics

Neeraj at 6th in the world rankings is currently closest to being an Olympic medal contender in 2020.

Hima Das, Tejaswin Shankar, and Sreeshanker are in the 20-25 ranking range, so they will have to improve quite a bit to be medal contenders by 2020.

Jinson Johnson is 88th in the 1500 meters (an 46th in 800 meters) and isn't realistically a medal prospect. Swapna Barman at 37th, Anas at 52nd, and Tejinder Pal Toor at 28th are probably in the same category.