Anju Bobby George of India wins bronze in the long jump (© Getty Images)
New Delhi, IndiaA team of thirteen athletes comprising of 4 men and 9 women will represent India at the World Championships in Osaka, later this month.
Blended with a mixture of old and new faces, the selected list includes two athletes from the 3-member team took part in the last edition at Helsinki in 2005. Long jumper Anju Bobby George and discus thrower Vikas Gowda made it again with their recent showings in the Asian Championships at Amman and local meetings at United States respectively.
Gowda, last year’s NCAA champion, has improved his personal best with a national record throw marked to 64.96m while he took part in Hartnell invitational meet at Salinas, California earlier this year. However, he has not improved further and finished second at the Asian Grand Prix and fourth in the Asian championships.
George, the bronze medalist in World at Paris Saint-Denis four years ago, rather started with below par performance at the beginning of this year but registered a season’s best jump of 6.65m while barely missed to defend the title and the gold medal to Kazakhstan’s Olga Rypakova in the Asian Championships.
Two most promising men in the squad, although in Indian perspective, triple jumper Renjith Maheswary and intermediate hurdler Joseph Abraham obliterated national records during the Asian Grand Prix meet in Guwahati on 23 June. Maheswary bettered the 31-year-old mark with a 17.04m jump and swept the entire AGP series and went on to become the Asian champion at Amman with a windy 17.19m. Abraham became the first Indian to dip under 50 seconds in 400m Hurdles by clocking a fabulous 49.52 in AGP but returned with a bronze medal in the continental meet in Jordan.
Shot putter Navpreet Singh, the reigning Asian champion at both Indoor and Outdoors, women discus throwers Krishna Poonia and Seema Antil (World junior bronze medalist in 2002) are the other members of the team besides a strong 4x400m relay squad which dominated the continental scene with back to back victories in the Asian Games in Doha (2006) and Asian Championships in Amman (2007).
Ram. Murali Krishnan for the IAAF
Team:
Men:
Joseph Abraham (400H), Vikas Gowda (DT), Renjith Maheswary (TJ), Navpreet Singh (SP)
Women:
Seema Antil (DT), Anju George (LJ), Anu Mariam Jose (Relay), Sini Jose (R), Mandeep Kaur (R), Manjit Kaur (R), Krishna Poonia (DT), Iylene Samantha (R) and Chitra Soman (R).
