Indian Athletics – News – 20th Asian Athletics Championships – Fourteen Asian athletes coming to defend their title at Pune -/ Ram. Murali Krishnan /

Pune, India – 28 June 2013 – The Pune City is all set to welcome athletes from 43 nations for the 20th Asian Athletics Championships to be held in Shree Shiv Chhatrapathi Sports Complex at Balewadi from July 3 to 7.

 This is the first time that Maharashtra State is entrusted with conducting the prestigious continental meet.  

Earlier Delhi hosted the 8th Asian Athletics Championships in 1989.  

As much as 14 defending champions from the last edition of the championships held at Kobe (Japan) in 2011 are taking part in Pune.   

They are—

MEN:

100m – Su Bingtian (China)

400m – Yousef Al-Masrahi (Saudi Arabia)

800m & 1500m – Mohamed Al-Azimi (Kuwait)

5000m – Dejene Regassa (Bahrain)

High Jump – Mutaz Essa Barshim (Qatar)

Shot Put – Chang Ming Huang (Chinese Taipei)

Decathon – Hadi Sepehrzad (Iran)

 WOMEN:

100m & 200m – Guzel Khubbieva (Uzbekistan)

1500m – Genzeb Shumi (Bahrain – taking part in 800m at Pune)

5000m – Tejitu Daba (Bahrain)

10000m – Shitaye Eshte (Bahrain)

400m Hurdles – Satomi Kubokura (Japan)

Long Jump – Mayookha Johny (India)

Heptathlon – Wassanee Winatho (Thailand)

This apart the entries from the Asian nations include former World champions and Asian Games medallists.

The young Qatari high jumper Mutaz Essa Barshim, who recently eclipsed the 29-year-old Asian record of Zhu Jianhua (China, 2.39m in 1984) in high jump by scaling 2.40m during the Diamond League meet at Eugene (USA), will be the star attraction in the five-day meet.

The women’s challenge includes a host of middle distance runners and the main focus will be on former World champion Maryam Yusuf Jamal from Bahrain.

A plenty of Indian athletes will take advantage of the home support and expecting to win medals at Pune.  Steeplechaser Sudha Singh, who recently bettered her national record and attained the World championships qualification, will be the top woman athlete from India in action.  In the men’s field discus thrower Vikas Gowda, long jumper Kumaravel Premkumar and triple jumper Renjith Maheswary are the top guns to win their respective events.

 The gold medallists from Pune Asian Championships will have an automatic qualification to participate in the World Championships at Moscow during August, this year. 

All arrangements have been made for the successful conduct of the above championships in Pune and athletes from various Asian countries are started arriving at the city. 

The number of participating nations (43) and athletes (577) will surpass all previous editions, hence Pune city is already started setting records even before the championships commence in the next week.

  -/ Ram. Murali Krishnan for the Organisers /-

 

Indian Athletics – News