Anju to hit jumping pit in Doha

Some of the top athletes selected for Doha are already training in Oman and will join the other members who left today morning for the competition. The contingent includes a few middle-distance runners who are already training in Doha for the past one week.

Triple jumper Renjith Maheswary, who is one of the qualifiers for Beijing, will give a skip to the indoor meet as he is preparing to leave for the US for a six-month advance training sting. Amarjeet Singh takes his place in the Doha championships.

Maheswary, however, is expected to participate in the Indian Grand Prix at Patiala on February 21. In the previous edition of indoor meet at Bangkok, India had won eight medals, including one gold in women’s 1500m through Sinimol Paulose. In Bangkok, Anju had won a bronze. At Doha, apart from Anju, the spotlight will be on Sinimol Paulose.

In recent times, no track runner from India has made it to the World Indoor Championships. But this time, foreign coach Nikolai K Snesarev, who has been overseeing the country’s middle and long distance runners, is sure of at least two athletes making it to Valencia, Spain, for the world meet. The competition in Spain will be held from March 7 to 9.

Going by the IAAF entry standards for world indoor, some top track runners of the country are close to it. The men’s 800m qualification mark for Valencia is 1:48.50 and 1500m is 3:43.00. It is quite possible that Nikolai’s prediction may come true. However, the field events will be difficult in both men and women’s section. For instance, the qualification mark in men’s high jump is 2.30m but Hari Shankar Roy, who is representing the country in Doha, hasn’t gone beyond 2.20m.

Doha meet is expected to help Anju gauge her preparation for the Olympics. If her husband-cum-coach Robert Bobby George, who had said that Anju’s training is going on the expected lines, is to be believed, it wouldn’t be a problem for national record holder to cross 6.65 metres, the qualification mark for the world indoors.

The squad

Men: Satinder Singh, Om Parkash (shot put), Amarajeet Singh (triple jump), Krishna Kumar Rane (long jump), Hari Shankar Roy (high jump), Sandeep Kumar, Surendra Singh (3000m), C Hamza (1500m), R Rajeev (800m), Sajesh Joseph (800m/1500m), Aboobacker T, VB Bineesh, Virinder Kumar Pankaj, Gurwinder Pal Singh Bhullar, Vinay Choudhary (4x400m relay), Ram Niwas, PJ Vinod (heptathlon).

Women: JJ Shobha (pentathlon), Kulwinder Kaur (triple jump), Anju Bobby George, Prajusha MA (long jump), Sahana Kumari (high jump), Kavita Raut, Preeja Shreedharan (3000m), Sushma Devi, Sinimol Paulose (800m/1500m), Mandeep Kaur, Manjeet Kaur (400m and relay), Sini Jose (relay), Iyleen Samantha (relay, 60m), Chitra K Soman (relay).