<
>

Praveen, Shaili headline India squad for Asian Athletics C'ship; top sprinters miss out

Praveen Chithravel competes at the 2019 Summer Universiade in Naples, Italy. Ivan Romano/Getty Images

Praveen Chithravel, Shaili Singh and Animesh Kujur headline the 59 strong India squad headed to the Asian Athletics Championship to be held between May 27 - 31 in Gumi, South Korea.

The Athletics Federation of India announced the squad via a press conference on Friday, a day after the completion of the four-day Federation Cup in Kochi. Having set stringent qualification standards, the AFI said that most of these athletes had cleared them at the meet.

Sprinters Gurindervir Singh and Manikanta Hoblidar had breached the AFI-set qualifying mark for the 100m before the Fed Cup in the Indian Grand Prix-1 but have not been considered as entries for the 100m in the Asian squad after Gurindervir finished seventh in the Fed Cup (after cramping up) and Manikanta finished third.

AFI President Bahadur Singh Sagoo and chief coach Radhakrishnan Nair said that the norms had been clear: performance at the Fed Cup and a top two finish was mandatory to back up earlier performances.

The only athletes excused were those performing at an international level consistently such as Avinash Sable and Parul Chaudhary. Meanwhile, Neeraj Chopra will not be a part of the team since he has international commitments at the time - including the Doha Diamond League and the Neeraj Chopra Classic.

India, who lie third in the all-time medal tally of the Asian Athletics Championships (behind China and Japan) will be looking to improve on their tally of 6 gold (27 total) won in the previous edition (2023) in Bangkok, Thailand.

The full squad that will travel to Gumi is:

Men's team

200m: Animesh Kujur

800m: Anu Kumar, Krishan Kumar

1500m: Younus Shah

3000m Steeplechase: Avinash Sable

5000m: Gulveer Singh, Abhishek Pal

10,000m: Gulveer Singh, Sawan Barwal

Triple jump: Praveen Chithravel, Abdulla Aboobacker

High jump: Sarvesh Kushare

Shot Put: Samardeep Singh Gill

Javelin throw: Sachin Yadav, Yashvir Singh

Decathlon: Tejaswin Shankar

20km walk: Servin Sebastian, Amit

4x100m: Pranav Pramod, Animesh Kujur, Manikanta Hoblidar, Amlan Borgohain, Tamilarasu, Ragul Kumar, Gurvinder Singh

4*400m: Vishal TK, Jay Kumar, Manu TS, Dharamveer Chaudhary, Rince Joseph, Tushar Kanti, Santosh Kumar, Mohit Kumar

Women's team:

200m: Nithya Gandhe

400m: Rupal Chaudhary, Vithya Ramraj

800m: Twinkle Chaudhary, Pooja

1500m: Lili Das, Pooja

3000m Steeplechase: Parul Chaudhary, Ankita

5000m: Sanjivani Baburao, Parul Chaudhary

10000m: Sanjivani Baburao, Seema

100m hurdles: Jyothi Yarraji

400m hurdles: Vithya Ramraj, Anu R

Long jump: Shaili Singh, Ancy Sojan

Heptathlon: Nandini Agasara

4x100m: Nithya Gandhe, Abhinaya Rajarajan, Sneha S, Srabani Nanda, Daneshwari, V Sudeeksha

4x400m: Rupal, Sneha K, Subha Venkatesan, Jisna Mathew, Kunja Rajitha, Sandramol Sabu