Asian All-Stars meet - PREVIEW

Three Asian Games champions and four reigning Asian champions will be the star attractions in the second Asian All-Stars meet which will be held in this Central Indian city on Thursday (Sept 18).

After a hectic season that included the Olympic Games and culminated last weekend at the IAAF / VTB Bank World Athletics Final in Stuttgart, the Asian All-Stars meet which was first held in Singapore in 2004 is being revived after four years.

There is a prize fund that matches the purse that was on offer in the Asian Grand Prix series for the last two seasons. Even if the prize money of 1500 dollars (gold), 800 dollars (silver) and 500 dollars (bronze) have not attracted the best in Asia, the meet gives a good opportunity for some of the young Indians to not only earn money but also gain valuable experience.

Three Asian Games (Doha 2006) champions in the field are male triple jumper Li Yanxi of China. and in the women’s division, 400 metres runner Olga Tereshkova of Kazakhstan and discus thrower Song Aimin of China. Needless to say, they should start the favourites in their respective events.

The four Asian champions from Amman last year, who are competing here are Malaysian high jumper Lee Hup Wei, Vietnamese middle distance runner Truong Thanh Hang (800m) and India’s Sinimole Paulose (1500m)  and Renjith Maheswary (TJ).

Triple Jump the expected highlight

Li Yanxi, fresh from his personal best of 17.30 in the qualification round of the Beijing Olympics where he eventually finished 10th (16.77) should coast home.

Kazakhstan's Yevgeniy Ektov who had a personal best 17.07 while winning the Asian Grand Prix leg in Korat in June, and his team-mate, Maksim Belyayev (PB 16.85) should be strong contenders for the triple jump title that should provide one of the best contests in the meet.

The Indian challenge is not expected to be strong, considering the poor form shown by their jumpers in recent weeks. Indian record holder Renjith Maheswary managed only 15.77 in the Beijing Games and improved marginally in the National championships in Kochi, southern India, recently with an effort of 15.91 metres. He owns the national record at 17.04. Amarjeet Singh, who narrowly missed Olympic qualification and Bibu Mathew are the others who should be challenging Li Yanxi.

Discus going China’s way too

The other Chinese who has been entered, Song Aimin, is also way above the class of the rest of the field. With her season’s best of 64.31 and her fourth-place finish in the Olympic Games (62.20) the 30-year-old Chinese discus throw is one of the most experienced exponents of the discipline in the Area, and should prevail over the challenge expected to be provided by Indians Krishna Poonia and Seema Antil.

Poonia (58.23) did not go beyond the qualification round in Beijing while Antil, the national record holder at 64.64, did not qualify for the Olympics. Poonia and Antil took the top two places in the recent National championship with 54.51 and 51.32 respectively.

Redemption for Tereshkova?

Olga Tereshkova, Asian Games champion at the 400 metres, could not live up to her stature in the Beijing Games, bowing out in the heats (53.36) when she would have been expected to progress. She had skipped the last Asian Championships in Amman last year and the Asian Grand Prix series this season, but should dominate here. The 26-year-old Kazakh has a personal best of 51.62 clocked in Bangkok last year while winning the World University Games title.

Team-mate Marina Maslenko should be the one to watch out for as far as Tereshkova is concerned. With two Asian Grand Prix titles this season including one in a PB of 51.41, Maslenko looks formidable. Japanese Asami Tanno, silver medallist at the 2007 Asian Championships, can trouble the Kazakh runners.

The top Indian women quarter-milers skipped the National Championships and thus do not find a place here. Satti Geetha, the 2005 Asian Championship silver medalist, with a season best 53.89 is the best of the Indian foursome.

Local, young challengers

Focus from the Indian viewpoint should be on two youngsters who have taken big strides in recent months. Long jumper-triple jumper Mayookha Johny, with two personal bests of 6.44 metres and 13.54 metres in the National Championships made a tremendous impact in a season when the top Indian athletes failed at the Olympic Games.

Johny will be competing in the Long Jump event here and she will have Japanese Maho Hanaoka (6.82, 2001) and Kazakh Olesya Belyayeva (PB 6.52, 2000) to contend with.

The other youngster in the Indian side on whom there is much hope is Tintu Luka, a trainee at the Usha School of Academy in Kerala State. Luka, a silver winner in the 800 metres in the Asian junior championships last June, clocked a career-best 2:04.94 in the National Championships, while coming behind the more experienced Sinimole Paulose and Sushma Devi.

Uzbekistan on a high!

The joint Asian record holders in women's High Jump, Yekaterina Yevseyeva of Kazakhstan and Nadezhda Dusanova of Uzbekistan, both of whom scaled 1.98 metres this season, should provide a high-class contest.

Talking of high jumpers, Indian record holder Hari Sankar Roy should have fond memories of Singapore and this meet. It was through the All Stars meet that he hit the headlines, scaling 2.25m, the men’s national record that is still intact.
Indian triple jumper Amarjeet Singh, who also took the silver in Singapore, Sri Lankan quarter-miler Prasanna Amarasekara, who should be the favourite here, and Asami Tanno are the athletes who would be making their second successive All Stars meet.

India has entered four athletes each in the 18 events, though confirmed foreign entries would eventually determine the home entries. The programme will be gone through in one afternoon session at the Tatia Tope Nagar Stadium here. The early afternoon should be warm but towards evening the weather is expected to be pleasant.

By an IAAF Correspondent

The events:

Men: 100m, 400m, 800m, 5000m, 400m hurdles, High Jump, Triple Jump, Shot Put, Discus Throw and Javelin Throw.

Women: 100m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, 100m hurdles, High Jump, Long Jump and Discus Throw.