Tuesday’s Indian Grand Prix 1 in Bengaluru’s Sree Kanteerava Stadium threw no major surprises, but with the qualification clock ticking for the Paris Olympics, Indian track and field athletes would have hoped for a better showing.
The domestic athletics season will gather pace this month with the National Federation Senior Athletics Competition and Indian GP 2 scheduled in the space of a fortnight. Most athletes re-set soon after last year’s Hangzhou Asian Games – India won 29 medals in athletics including six gold – using the six-month break from competition for strength and conditioning and to recover from niggles with Paris qualification the target.
One perhaps should not read much into the lowkey performances in Bengaluru as it is just start of domestic competition. With five Athletics Federation of India (AFI)-sanctioned events to go before the June 30 deadline for Paris qualification, many prominent athletes will hope to raise their performances. Among them would be jumpers, especially Shaili Singh in women’s long jump, and Eldhose Paul, Praveen Chithravel and Abdulla Aboobacker in men’s triple jump.
Shaili won in Bengaluru with an opening jump of 6.52m — 34cm short of the automatic qualification mark. Unlike many other athletes for whom Indian GP 1 was the first competition of the season, Shaili had competed just 10 days earlier in the Indian Open Jumps Competition held at her training base, Anju Bobby High Performance Centre.
The 20-year-old came second (6.40m) in that competition, behind two-time national champion Nayana James, who finished second this week. For them to meet the Paris mark, they will have to beat Anju Bobby George’s 20-year-old national record (6.83m), a tall order considering their form and progression.
After leaping into the limelight with a World U-20 silver in 2021, Shaili has found the going tough at the senior level. While injuries have had a major say in her average results — she came back in March last year after a nine-month layoff for lower back injury — there has been a visible lack of explosive power in her jumps.
There have been flashes of brilliance, like the 6.76m effort last April, which is the second-longest jump by an Indian woman, but consistency has been hard to achieve. At the 2023 Asian Games, held less than three months after her Asian Championships silver, a tearful Shaili left the venue in a huff after finishing fifth with a modest 6.48m jump. Ancy Sojan won silver there with a jump of 6.63m. Five months into 2024, there are 59 athletes worldwide who have better jumps than Shaili’s best this season.
The men’s triple jump saw the 2022 Commonwealth Games champion Eldhose Paul and Asian Games bronze medallist Praveen Chithravel compete, but none could breach the Paris qualifying mark of 17.22m. This was Chithravel’s outdoor season opener, while Paul competed in the jumps event less than two weeks back. Abdulla Aboobacker, who jumped a subdued 16.33m to finish eighth at the Shanghai Diamond League last month, skipped the Bengaluru event.
Among the three elite jumpers, only Chithravel has crossed 17m this year. That it is Asia’s best jump of the season so far — seventh best in the world — should give him confidence, as will his going past the Paris mark outside the qualifying window last May. With long jumper Murali Sreeshankar’s Paris dreams ending in a heartbreak after a knee injury suffered during training – he has undergone surgery — all eyes will be on Chithravel whenever he takes the field next.
India’s other athletics hopefuls who are yet to make the Paris cut will also be looking at the season in anticipation. Some, like experienced javelin thrower Annu Rani, have been based in Europe since last year. Annu, who won a surprise gold in Hangzhou with a throw of 62.92m after failing to hit 60m all year, has been training under Werner Daniels, the coach of Germany’s former world champion Johannes Vetter, at his Offenburg Centre. Having contemplated quitting the sport ahead of the Asian Games, Annu’s training and resolve will be tested when she begins competing this season.
At the other end of the spectrum sits 100m hurdler Jyothi Yarraji, who is currently training in Tenerife, Spain with her coach James Hillier. The 24-year-old serial national record breaker who won gold at the Asian Indoor Championships in Tehran earlier this year is yet to open her outdoor season. Having come 0.01secs of the Paris mark, Yarraji is almost certain to qualify on rankings — she is currently 18th on the ‘Road to Paris’ list and needs to only be in the top 40 at the July 7 deadline for gaining entry on world rankings.
