Sunday, March 16, 2025 | 03:14 AM ISTहिंदी में पढें
Business Standard
Notification Icon
userprofile IconSearch

Indian race walkers to avoid reaching early in Rio for Oly

Image

Press Trust of India Jaipur
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.

Don't miss the most important news and views of the day. Get them on our Telegram channel

First Published: Feb 26 2016 | 6:49 PM IST

Explore News