Natl athletic meet from today

Nagercoil, June 30: Training and competition schedule for aspirant Indian athletes for the Asian Track and Field meet and Sydney Olympics has gone haywire, even as the athletes have assembled here for the National Domestic Athletics championship (1st leg) kicking off on Saturday.

With AAFI having announced that performance at the Nagercoil and Madurai meets and the inter-state event at Chennai would be the yardstick to make it to Jakarta and Sydney, the athletes are a disheartened lot over the way AAFI has handled the domestic calendar despite being aware that rescheduling of the Aug 3-6 Asian meet at Jakarta was on the cards due to the ethnic crisis in Indonesia.

However, for Saturday’s meet, the sandy’ track looks all set for athletes to better their performance and achieve the standards set by the Sports ministry and international federations.