Indian Open Athletics to be held in Pune on July 12

The Indian Open Athletics will be organised by the Maharashtra Athletics Association here on Saturday and will feature around 350 athletes from across the country.

Maharashtra will have the largest representation in the one-day even featuring 95 athletes whereas Army will have the second largest with 28 participants.

Apart from featuring athletes from several states, there also will be teams from the Indian Army, CISF, IOCL, JSW, Indian Navy, NCOE Bangalore, NCOE Trivandrum, ONGC, Police Sports Control Board, Railway Sports, Reliance, and SSCB.

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The top athletes in the competition include TK Vishal, who finished fourth in 400m and won the gold medal in mixed relay and silver in 4x400m relay at the Asian Championships in Gumi in South Korea.

Jay Kumar (400m), who won the silver in 4x400m relay in Gumi, Krishan Kumar (800m) who won the silver medal in Asian Championships in 2023 as well as this year’s Asian Championships’ bronze medallist in 1500m, Yoonus Shah will also be among the competitors.

National Games champion Ruchit Mori (400m hurdles) and bronze medal winner in 110m Muhammed Lazan will also be present at the meet here at the Savitribai Phule University.

“As per the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) guidelines, participation in at least one Indian Open Athletics Competition or Indian Grand Prix is mandatory for athletes to be eligible for the forthcoming National Senior Inter-State Athletics Championships,” the organisers said in a release.

“The event was originally scheduled to be organised by the ASI, which later withdrew. The responsibility was then taken up by the Maharashtra Athletics Association, which has worked tirelessly to prepare for the event in a short span of three months,” they added.