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Journalism of Courage
The 51st national open athletics meet has been making news for the wrong reasons so far,including the dismal performances of star athletes and inclement weather and bad venue conditions. On Monday,another farce was added to the list with the womens 3000m steeplechase being cancelled due to lack of competition.
The cancellation meant Asian Games gold medallist Sudha Singh was denied a chance to book a spot at the London Olympics. A timing of 9:48.00 would have been enough for Sudha to achieve the B standard for the Olympics. It happens sometimes. But I am not at all disappointed. I can look forward to next year, Sudha said. I was clocking 9:49.00 regularly during training. So I was 100 per cent confident of qualifying here she said.
On their part,the organisers pleaded helplessness. We need at least three competitors for a final. But only two Railways athletes showed up,so it had to be cancelled, chairman of technical committee CK Valson said. Besides Sudha,only her Railways colleague Kiran Tiwari turned up for the final at the SAI Complex at Salt Lake.
In fact,the start list distributed by the organisers had four names that of Sudha,Kiran,Priyanka Singh Patel and Geeta Rani while the actual list of participants should have been six,which irked Athletics Federation of India director ML Dogra.
We will take strong action against the units who have sent their participants names but did not turn up. They will not be allowed to take part in any further events of this championships, Dogra said. The day also saw Satender Singh and Avin A Thomas sharing the top spot,clocking an identical 51.49s in the mens 400m hurdles.
Mayookha wins 2nd gold
Meanwhile,Mayookha Johny bettered her own meet record in triple jump en-route to winning her second gold after she cleared 13.71m up from13.54m. She had bagged her first gold in the long jump on the opening day.
