Seema Antil (Uttar Pradesh) qualified for the discus throw competition in the Olympic Games in Tokyo with a 63.72m throw on the final day of the Fast&Up 60th National Inter-State Athletics Championships at the Netaji Subhas National Institute of Sports in Patiala on Tuesday. She became the 12th individual Indian athlete to qualify for Tokyo2020.
Having reached Patiala from Belarus in the wee hours of June 27, the 37-year-old went past the 60m mark on four of her five legal throws, going close to the Olympic Qualifying mark of 63.50m with her third effort of 63.18m that was a new meet record before finding the power to breach the Olympic standard with her fourth try.
Without a world ranking since she was nursing a glutes injury, Seema Antil was taking part in only her third competition since the 2018 Asian Games. She threw 62.64m in ṭhe Federation Cup here in March and after managing 58.62 in Minsk on June 25, she secured her ticket to the fourth Olympic Games with her first throws over 63m since August 7, 2004 in Kiev.
“I know I can throw farther with my training but I was wary of aggravating the issue with my glutes muscles. I have worked hard over the last two and half years since the Asian Games and am happy that I could secure qualification today. I will consult the Athletics Federation of India and draw up my training programme for the Olympic Games,” she said.
Besides the 4x400m mixed relay squad, Avinash Sable (men’s 3000m Steeplechase), Tajinderpal Singh Toor (men’s Shot Put), Neeraj Chopra and Shivpal Singh (men’s Javelin Throw), M Sreeshankar (men’s Long Jump), Kamalpreet Kaur (women’s Discus Throw) and race walkers KT Irfan, Sandeep Kumar and Rahul Rohila (men) and Bhawna Jat and Priyanka Goswami (women) have already qualified for the Olympic Games.
There is expectation that some others like MP Jabir (men’s 400m Hurdles), Dutee Chand (women’s 200m), Annu Rani (women’s Javelin Throw) will make it on the strength of their world ranking. Besides if the men and women’s relay teams, ranked 13 and 16 on the Road to Olympic Games list at the time of writing, may raise the size of the Indian athletics team.
With World Athletics responding positively to the Athletics Federation of India request to consider the 3:01.89 clocked in the 4x400m heats on Friday, the men’s team was restored to the 13th place ahead of Germany, Poland and Czech Republic. It let the men’s team to rest Amoj Jacob and run a relaxed race today.
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Running with a changed combination after Hima Das pulled out, the Indian women’s 4x100m relay squad of AK Daneshwari, Archana Suseendran, S Dhanalakshmi and Dutee Chand had to content itself with a new meet record time of 44.15 seconds, short of its target (43.03 seconds) that would have earned it a berth in the Olympic Games.
Hima Das tried gamely to compete in the women’s 200m final, chasing 22.80 seconds to qualify, but finished fifth in 25.03 seconds. PD Anjali (Kerala) and Lovepreet Singh (Punjab) were the winners of the women’s and men’s 200m sprints in 24.01 seconds and 21.04 seconds respectively.
The results (finals):
Men
200m: 1. Lovepreet Singh (Punjab) 21.04 seconds; 2. Kaliga Kumarage (Sri Lanka) 21.13; 3. B Nithin (Tamil Nadu) 21.20.
4x400m Relay: 1. India (MP Jabir, Arokia Rajiv, Muhammed Anas Yahiya and Noah Nirmal Tom) 3:05.22 (New Meet Record. Old: 3:09.29, Kerala, 2006); 2. Punjab 3:09.84; 3. Haryana 3:13.02.
3000m Steeplechase: 1. Shankar Lal Swami (Haryana) 8:46.36; 2. Vikram Singh (Madhya Pradesh) 9:15.53; Md Nur Hasan (Uttar Pradesh) 9:17.96.
Javelin Throw: 1. Rohit Yadav (Uttar Pradesh) 77.74m; 2. Shivpal Singh (Uttar Pradesh) 77.31, 3. Sumedha Ranasinghe (Sri Lanka) 77.28.
Women
200m: 1. PD Anjali (Kerala) 24.01 seconds; 2. BIM Jayamane (Sri Lanka) 24.08; 3. Harika Devi Antaram (Telangana) 24.64.
1500m: 1. Harmilan Bain (Punjab) 4:15.52; 2. Chand (Delhi) 4:18.96; 3. PU Chitra (Kerala) 4:20.29
4x100m Relay: 1. India (AK Daneshwari, Archana Suseendran, S Dhanalakshmi and Dutee Chand) 44.15 seconds (New Meet Record. Old: 45.69, Tamil Nadu, Lucknow 2019); 2. Sri Lanka 44.55, 3. Telangana 45.91.
4x400m Relay: 1. India (Subha Venkatesan, Jisna Mathew, Kiran Pahal and Veeramani Revathi) 3:38.46; 2. India Mix B 3:47.16; 3. Punjab 3:54.77.
3000m Steeplechase: 1. Parul Chaudhary (Uttar Pradesh) 10:01.58; 2. Komal Chandrakant Jagdale (Maharashtra) 10:10.31; 3. Nilani Rathnayake (Sri Lanka) 10:12.02.
Discus Throw: 1. Seema Antil (Uttar Pradesh) 63.72m (New Meet Record. Old: 62.49m, Neelam J Singh Chennai, 2000); 2. Sonal Goyal (Delhi) 49.50; 3. Madhu Renu (Rajasthan) 47.55.
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