After four gruelling days, the 2025 Federation Cup is over. A total of 59 athletes have been selected in India squad for the Asian Athletics Championship, which will take place between May 27- 31 in Gumi, South Korea.
Here's what we learned as India's best track and field athletes took to the ground in Kochi:
Never been a better time for sprinting
Animesh Kujur absolutely shattered the existing national record in the men's 200m with a stunning 20.40s that stood out for just how effortless it looked. The secret, his coach Martin Owens says is the fact that there are really quick runners pushing him -- Manikanta Hoblidhar, Amlan Borgohain, (and in the 100m Gurindervir Singh) are a close bunch, all of them belonging to Reliance Foundation, all of them training together and pushing Indian sprinting to new horizons.
Outside this foursome too there are quick runners -- like Fed Cup 100m champ Pranav Pramod (10.27s), and that's a great thing. As Owen says there's no substitute to running as many fast races as possible. Of course, there's a way to go before we can start talking about the sprinters seriously on an international level and both Animesh and Owens admit, but it's plainly evident that they are working very hard to bridge that gap.
In that context, it's a crying shame that Gurindervir and Manikanta won't run the 100m at the Asian Athletics Championships. They had both breached the qualifying mark in the Indian Grand Prix earlier, but on Friday the Athletics Federation of India said their 'non-performance' in the Fed Cup (Gurvinder cramped up and finished last, Manikanta finished third) means they can't go to the Asian.
India's best hurdlers look sharp
Jyothi Yarraji proved, once again, that she is by a distance the best 100m hurdler in the country. She won gold with a time of 13.23s and did that not sprinting fully for over three weeks -- she was recovering from a hamstring pull. Quite the talent.
Meanwhile in the 400m hurdles, Vithya Ramraj looks in fine form, searing through to the Asian C'ships with a 56.02s lap. She's fully confident of beating PT Usha's long-standing national record (55.42) this season and says that's because she's worked hard on improving the most important aspect to her running -- her mentality. (She would also later win silver in the 400m flat).
Javelin continues to hold proper promise
Big Sachin Yadav ambled to an easy gold in the Fed Cup, throwing 83.86m and doing it in the style of Olympic champ Arshad Nadeem. At 6'5", 105kg+, Sachin's a big unit and has a non-technique technique that utilizes all the power in those massive shoulders. He says he's recovering from an ankle injury (in the blocking leg) and that given better conditions and a fully fit body there's much more to come. Watch this space.
Meanwhile, Asian Games silver medalist Kishore Kumar Jena's recovery continues at a slow pace: he finished fourth here with 77.82m but says he's slowly but surely getting closer to hitting the kind of stride that had him hurling the javelin nearly 10m more just a year and a half ago.
The heat
Oh, the heat. The only thing worse is the official apathy.
The jumpers go great guns
Three jumps that cleared the Asian Athletics qualifying mark show how strong the women's long jump field is right now. Only Shaili Singh (6.64m) and Ancy Sojan (6.46m) are going, but Moumita Mondal (6.45m) showed that she's going to push the other two all the way -- and that's a fantastic thing for women's long jumping.
There's a new champ in the men's, David P, who beat out Jeswin Aldrin and Mohammed Anees Yahya with a jump of 7.94m. The only one of the three (and one of the few men in the competition) coached by a woman, Keerti Tiwari, he is fully confident he'll be taking aiming at the national record very soon.
P.S. Sreeshankar Murali can't come back from injury soon enough. His father, and coach, Murali assured us that he's well on track for a comeback in the next couple of months. The more jumpers pushing beyond that 8m mark, the better for Indian jumping.
Triple jumper Praveen Chithravel was prepared to go beyond 17.20m. He did 17.37m in 3rd attempt to equal his nat record on final day of 28th nat federation senior athletics competition in Kochi.#IndianAthletics #kochi #Kerala pic.twitter.com/crqCAea4Po
- Athletics Federation of India (@afiindia) April 24, 2025
In the men's triple jump, Praveen Chithravel underlined his world class credentials with a massive leap of 17.37m that took him to both the Asian C'ships and the Worlds. He says he's learnt a lot from a disappointing Olympics on how to handle pressure and maintain mental strength. This portends well ahead of what could be a career-defining Worlds.
Dev Meena breaks his own national record again
...and yet, it's not good enough for the AFI.
There's no catching the champs of Heptathlon and Decathlon
Nandini Agasara won the heptathlon with 5813 points (412 more than silver) while Tejaswin Shankar won the decathlon with 7603 points (377 more than silver) and neither ever really looked flustered at any stage. They both comfortably made the Asian qualifying mark too.