100m relay teams make final push

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 10

With India’s 4x400m relay teams having already qualified for the Asian Games, the AFI is making one last push to also get the 4x100m teams into the continental event.

The Indian Grand Prix-5 will be an excellent opportunity for the sprint teams to qualify. The women’s and men’s races are scheduled for tomorrow, and the athletes should benefit from a new track in home conditions. The qualifying times for the men’s and women’s teams are 39 and 44.50 seconds, respectively.

The top sprinters warmed up with individual 100m races today. “Today’s race was just a warm-up. Tomorrow will be our big test,” said Punjab’s Harjit Singh, who was the fastest athlete today with 10.55s. “We have run 39s in training but it will be different under pressure. It was very windy today. Hopefully, it will be better tomorrow,” he added.

While Srabani Nanda was the fastest woman today, she will likely partner an athlete whose main event is the 100m hurdles. Jyothi Yarraji, who has already qualified for the Asian Games in the 100m hurdles and 200m, is all set to run in the relays tomorrow.

However, with her favourite events missing from the roster here, Jyothi decided to test herself in the 400m for the first time. She clocked 53.91s to finish sixth. “It was just for fun,” Jyothi said.

She added that the relay team had matched the qualifying mark in training a few times. “The new track is nice and bouncy so I am confident we will qualify,” she said.

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