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