National Inter-State Athletics Championships: Annu Rani, Animesh Kujur look at final chance to secure Tokyo berth

The 64th edition of the National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships, set to begin at the Jawaharal Nehru Stadium in Chennai on Wednesday, is the last chance for a majority of the Indian athletes to qualify for next month’s World Championships in Tokyo.

For some, the category ‘B’ event offers valuable points in their bid to make it to the Japanese capital on the basis of World Rankings. Case in point being Annu Rani, the national record holder in women’s javelin throw. Annu achieved a season’s best of 62.59m at the International Wiesław Maniak Memorial in Poland before winning the Indian Open World Athletics Bronze Level Continental Tour event in Bhubaneswar with 62.01m throw this month.

The women’s javelin throw event at Tokyo will have 36 athletes – 11 qualifiers who have achieved the entry standard of 64m and 25 others through the world rankings quota. The 32-year-old Annu, whose national record is 63.82m, is currently 28th in the race.

Animesh Kujur, the sprinter, has signed up for only the 200m event in Chennai as he is 42nd in the Road to Tokyo rankings with a total of 48 slots available. While the entry standard for Worlds is 20.16s, Kujur’s national record, which came at the Asian Championships, is 20.32s. Another big showing from the 22-year-old might just be enough to book his spot through the rankings route.

For the rest of the field, anything less than achieving the entry standards would mean the end of the road. Long jumper Murali Sreeshankar, silver medallist at the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games, is in such a situation.

The 26-year-old Sreeshankar had sustained a knee injury in April last year which forced him to miss the Paris Olympics. After recovering from surgery, he returned to the sand pit in July and has won all four competitions he has participated in with a season’s best of 8.13m in Bhubaneswar. However, the only way to qualify for Tokyo is clearing the qualification standard of 8.27m. He needs to add at least one more to his tally of five career jumps over that mark.

All eyes will be on the men’s javelin throw competition, set to take place on Sunday, the last day of the championships. With Neeraj Chopra getting a wild card as the defending world champion, India can have as many as four participants in Tokyo. The likes of Sachin Yadav, Yash Vir Singh, Rohit Yadav and Sahil Silwal – all featured in the inaugural Neeraj Chopra Classic – will look to book their spot by throwing the spear past the entry standard of 85.50m.

Tejaswin Shankar will try his luck in his pet event of high jump.
| Photo Credit:
MURALI KUMAR K/The Hindu

Tejaswin Shankar, who fell short of a decathlon gold at the Asian Championships by just 16 points and missed an automatic spot for Worlds as the area champion, will try his luck in his pet event of high jump. The entry standard for Tokyo is 2.33m, which is 4cm more than his own National Record.

After a historic performance by the 4x400m men’s quartet at the previous edition in Budapest in 2023, India looks set to have no representation in any of the relay events this time in Tokyo. One last shot at qualification could have been taken at the inter-state meet but the entry list mentions no international teams in any of the five relay events.

The Athletics Federation of India has, time and again, said that the inter-state championships is a mandatory event for all Indian athletes. However, the absence of athletes such as Neeraj, Gulveer Singh (5000m), Parul Chaudhary (3000m steeplechase) and Nandini Agasara (heptathlon), who have already qualified for the Worlds, signals that exceptions have been made.

But Tamil Nadu’s Praveen Chithravel, the triple jumper who secured qualification for Tokyo with an effort of 17.37m at the Federation Cup, does appear in the entry list.

Asian Championships gold medallists Avinesh Sable (3000m steeplechase), Jyothi Yarraji (women’s 100m hurdles) and Pooja (women’s high jump) will miss the event in Chennai due to injuries.