Circuit Meet today

HYDERABAD, June 19: The first two Circuit meets at Nagercoil and Bangalore saw only six athletes attaining the qualifing marks for the Asian...

HYDERABAD, June 19: The first two Circuit meets at Nagercoil and Bangalore saw only six athletes attaining the qualifing marks for the Asian Track and Field meet which will be held at Fukoda Japan from July 19 to 22.

The last of this Independence Cup meet, which will be held under floodlights tomorrow, will give another opportunity to the athletes to get into the Indian team. Among the six, five have been throwers with the redoubtable P T Usha being the only runner.

The former Asian sprint queen, who after a poor run in 400 metres, came out with flying colours in 200 metres in Bangalore. She won in 23.46 seconds with the qualifying mark being 23.50. The athletes will have a final chance at the Federation Cup to be held, mercifully, on a synthetic track in Chennai next month.

It is to be seen whether Usha will make it in the 400 metres on this heavy grass track. Interestingly, all the three trials are being held on grass. If there are overnight rains again, the track may get heavier. Under thecircumstances, the participants will have a tough time attaining the qualifying marks. In fact, the Andhra Pradesh Amateur Athletics Association may even change the venue 8212; to RRC ground in Secunderabad 8212; if it rains tonight.

Jyotirmoy Sikdar has had the satisfaction of achieving a double in 400 and 800 metres but she still has not touched the qualifying mark.

It is not surprising that the only throwers have impressed the selectors. Satvir Singh in javelin and Bahadur Singh in shot put have confirmed their entries with fine performance in Bangalore meet.

On the distaff side, Neelam J Singh has been the only athlete to set a national mark when she rewrote the record in discus throw 57.94. Swaranjit Kaur, too, qualified from this event at Nagercoil.

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Weather permitting, the meet will begin at 4.30 p.m. with the last event scheduled for 8.30 p.m. In all, 16 events will be held on the day.

Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu will the be the chief guest in the evening function. The winners of eachevent will get Rs 5,000 while the second and third placed receive Rs 3,000 and Rs 2,000 respectively.