Spooked by the mysterious Zika virus that has cast a shadow on the Olympic Games in Brazil, India's race walkers will avoid
reaching Rio de Janeiro in advance for
the mega-event in August.
Race walk coach Alexander Artsybashev today said his wards, who make the cut for the Olympics will have an 80-day training stint from June onwards in Poland and from there, they will fly to Rio just before the start of the events.
Alexander, who has been coaching the Indian race walk team since 2011, was speaking to journalists ahead of the two -day National Race
Walk Championships which begins here
tomorrow.
"After this, we have the Asian Race Walk Championships (March 20) in Nomi, Japan and then the IAAF World Race Walking Team Championships (May 7-8) in Italy. After that we will have an 80-day training stint at Spala in Poland as the Indian summer is not suitable for preparation of race walkers for the Olympics," he said.
"From Spala, we will go straight to Rio for the Olympics. But since there is the Zika problem (in Brazil) we are not going to Rio in advance. We will reach there just before the race walk events start," said the Russian.
Organisers of the 2016 Olympics are facing an uphill task in their bid to convince the international sports community that the Games will be spared the effects of the mysterious Zika virus.
Concerns over Zika, carried by the Aedes aegypti mosquito and thought to cause defects in newborns, have dominated recent discussion about the Olympics, which begin in Rio on August 5.
