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Also, he may have been forced to go to the NCAA meet by his college's medical staff. Maybe they did not let him off. Maybe they said that it will affect their decision wrt next year's scholarship. Whereas wrt the Asiad, there may be no such threat.

Just to be clear, I don't think anyone considers winning a NCAA title as winning glory for their country. It is almost strictly winning glory for their university. However, the NCAA standards in track and field are quite high and in many events presage international success. The 2 previous NCAA winners from India, Vikas Gowda and Mohinder Singh Gill, went to become among our highest ranked athletes (I believe top 8 in the world at some point) at the world level with medal success at the CG and Asian Games, so the hope is that Tejaswin Shankar will follow that path. Clearly, missing the Asian Games is a disappointment as he would have been a medal prospect but presumably he has good injury based reason as otherwise he will have to wait 4 years for the next Asian Games opportunity.

Kerala's Jinson Johnson broke India's longest standing national record (42 yrs old) of 1:45.77s in 800m, set by Sriram Singh at the Montreal Olympics in 1976 ... He clocked 1:45.65s during the ongoing 58th National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships in Guwahati and also qualify for the Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games.

Jinson breaks Sriram's 42-year-old 800m record

Sad that for 42 years nobody could cross that mark. Good to see that finally record being finally broken after 42 years. Well done, Jinson Johnson.

Congrats to Jinson! What are the Asian standards these days in the 800m? Can he come close to a Gold in Asiad with a sub 1:46 timing?

The gold at 2014 Asian games went at 1.47.48 and gold at 2017 Asian championships went at 1.49+.

Checking the top lists from Asia for the year, only 1 athlete from Qatar has a sub 1.46 timing although a couple of others from Qatar/Baharain ( all imported Africans,I assume) have 1.46+.

So, if Johnson can produce similar timing at Asiad, there is pretty good chance of gold.

If the Asian standards are that poor, I guess he is a pretty good Gold prospect at the Asiad. I think Jinson has been in the 1:46 to 1:47 range pretty consistently and even on a bad day at the Rio Olympics, he got a 1:47:27 in the heats. The world standards are quite far, with the Rio qualification standard itself being 1:46 then.

IAAF world under 20 championships is currently on at Tampere, Finland.

Hima Das looks the favourite in womens 400M. In the heats today, she posted the best timing of 52.25 sec. Hope she wins the gold here.

In the mens long jump, Shreeshankar was 4th in qualification with a jump of 7.68 sec.

sameerph wrote: ↑Tue Jul 10, 2018 3:23 pm IAAF world under 20 championships is currently on at Tampere, Finland.

Hima Das looks the favourite in womens 400M. In the heats today, she posted the best timing of 52.25 sec. Hope she wins the gold here.

In the mens long jump, Shreeshankar was 4th in qualification with a jump of 7.68 sec.

That was quite a jump, Sameer. A whopping 7.68 sec. You sure it wasn’t high jump where they count airborne time as the new criterion?

Haha. Correction- 7.68 mtrs.

Hima Das reached the final with the best timing among finalist of 52.1 sec at world under 20 championships.

Today she has a chance of becoming the first Indian track athlete to win a medal at world under 20 championships. Gold would be great.

Hima Das is the favourite for the gold. No one looks remotely close to her. It will be the biggest upset of the championships if she doesn't win tonight.

Hima is the best woman runner we have had since PT Usha, based on the u19 record so far, right?

And she did it
Watched the finals and she was lagging behind for the 1st 300m and man she ran like an engine on the home stretch
51.46 secs!!!!!

This is exciting! I wonder though if a lot of the best junior runners have already moved on to the adult circuit?