Indian Athletics Thread ...

[depleter]

Neeraj chopra with a 87.86m throw in a small time competition. He will be back to big tournaments in april I think

[IndiaSports]

Neeraj also qualifies for Olympic.
Good comeback, he has an outside chance of Olympic medal

[arjun2761]

Wow, that is a terrific comeback! I think it might be his second best throw in competition, so hopefully he'll get to 90 mts during the summer when it should be easier to throw further.

His mark is the 7th best in the last year but the top 6 are above 89 mts but only 2 are above 90 mts.

[jaydeep]

24-year-old Shivpal Singh becomes a second javelin thrower to qualify for Tokyo Olympic after Neeraj Chopra ... In the South Africa event, Shivpal crossed the qualifying distance on his 5th attempt throw, 85.47m (85m qualification mark).

[jayakris]

24-year-old Shivpal Singh becomes a second javelin thrower to qualify for Tokyo Olympic after Neeraj Chopra ... In the South Africa event, Shivpal crossed the qualifying distance on his 5th attempt throw, 85.47m (85m qualification mark).

Who knew that we would start having Javelin guys making it to Olympics! But will there be an Olympics this year?

[jaydeep]

Who knew that we would start having Javelin guys making it to Olympics! But will there be an Olympics this year?

That's a big question.
Japanese politicians giving mixed-signals ... Some saying it will be delayed but yesterday, Japan's PM Shinzo Abe declared that Tokyo Olympics will go ahead as planned.

[Sin Hombre]

I do not see Europe or the US getting past the pandemic by July.

[depleter]

Avinash Sable(the 3000m steeple chase specialist who came into picture in 2019 WC where he qualified for the olympics) broke the Delhi half marathon record by more than 3 minutes.
https://www.espn.in/athletics/story/_/i ... on-success

Considering the dominance with which he won the Indian competition at the 2020 Delhi half marathon (his time of 1.00:30 was nearly four minutes in front of the second placed Indian (1.04:16) and shattered the old national record of 1.03:46 by nearly three and a half minutes), it's hard to overlook the fact that Avinash Sable had been treating the race almost like an afterthought."I only found out I was going to be taking part in the race until about a month ago," says Sable, who, on Sunday, was running only the third half marathon race of his career.

Sable's decision to compete in New Delhi was largely a response to this predicament. "It's incredibly frustrating to train the entire year and not have any competition to take part in. You can only see where you need to improve during competition," he says. This assessment is backed up by his coach Amrish Kumar as well. "He needed to take part in a competition. Any competition, even a 1500m race would do," says his coach Kumar.

"Right now, Avinash's best in the 3000m steeplechase is 8.21:37. The target for the Olympics will be to get that down to between 8.12:00 and 8.15:00," says Kumar. Sable himself feels this is possible. "Right now, I feel my endurance level is comparable to the best in the world. I still think I need to improve on my speed. Overall, I feel I can push myself even more," he says.

2016 bronze went at 8:11 while 2012 gold went at 8:16(the pacing was slow here).

[prasen9]

That is a great idea. Although my daughter does race-walking at the national level (which she took on after an injury), now I am telling her to do some half-marathons because that is what is available. It keeps you fit and gets your adrenaline going. And some targets for them to train for. Athletes need to compete. There are a whole bunch of virtual meets but they are boring. AAU is doing some events here (in the US) but we do not want to be traveling and getting the virus from a super-spreader meet. Maybe he will try the full marathon next and maybe we will discover a good athlete by luck.

[suresh]

That was a great run by Avinash Sable. He broke 5K and 10K records along the way to setting the HM record at Delhi. Looks like he was able to keep up with the top marathoners till the very end. I look forward to seeing him go under 1h which would make him truly world class -- he is almost there.

[suresh]

That is a great idea. Although my daughter does race-walking at the national level (which she took on after an injury), now I am telling her to do some half-marathons because that is what is available. It keeps you fit and gets your adrenaline going. And some targets for them to train for. Athletes need to compete. There are a whole bunch of virtual meets but they are boring. AAU is doing some events here (in the US) but we do not want to be traveling and getting the virus from a super-spreader meet. Maybe he will try the full marathon next and maybe we will discover a good athlete by luck.

Your daughter can work on improving her 5K/10K pace. Pick a 10-12 week plan and do the grind. I can suggest a plan if you are interested. I am currently in week 9 of a 12 week HM plan. I don't plan on doing real races at the moment and hence am working on improving my pace.

[prasen9]

Sure, Suresh. Will you message me on FB (or here)? Thanks. Will try. Although I suspect you are more disciplined than my daughter

[depleter]

And Neeraj chopra starts the year with a new national record. He breaks his own national record of 88.06m by throwing 88.07m at the ongoing igp 3.
This is this year's World leading throw.

[Sin Hombre]

Nice. Hopefully one of the Germans is struggling.

[arjun2761]

Neeraj has the top outdoor mark for this year which is young. However, somewhat surprised that he had the second best mark for last year because I thought a few track and field events were held later in the year in Europe and elsewhere. Neeraj is likely one of the top 3-4 javelin throwers at this point, so let's hope he can keep getting better this year.