A host of Indian track and field stars will vie for Olympic berths when they take the field in the Federation Cup National Athletics Championships, the season's first major meet, beginning here tomorrow.
As many as 18 have already qualified for the Rio Games though most of them are race walkers and marathoners in both men's and women's sections, and thus there would be lot more Olympic berths for the athletes at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.
Interestingly, the three-day meet will be held four days after a power failure at the JLN Stadium resulted in the first leg of Indian Grand Prix ending in a farce.
The blackout led to the timings being recorded manually, rendering four national and two Rio Olympics qualification norms useless.
All the track events were hand-timed as the photo-finish equipment was not switched on due to power failure. Hand timings are not considered valid for record purposes and hence will not be counted for Olympic qualifications.
Outside walk races and marathons, only shot putter Inderjeet Singh and discus thrower Vikas Gowda have qualified for the Olympics among men while Tintu Luka (800m), Lalita Babar (3000m steeplechase) and Manpreet Kaur (shot put) have booked Rio Games berths among women.
All of them, except for Gowda, will be taking part in the Federation Cup, looking to build the momentum in the run-up to the Olympics. Reigning Asian champion Inderjeet has returned home from his training stint in the United States which was funded under the Target Olympic Podium Scheme.
Inderjeet would be the biggest star competing on the opening day tomorrow. Promising youngster Neeraj Chopra would be another athlete looking for a good show in men's javelin throw tomorrow and he is likely to face stiff competition from Vipin Kasana and the experienced Rajinder Singh who returns to action after a one-year injury layoff.
India's first woman triple jumper to cross 14 metres, Mayookha Johny would also be one of the top athletes who would look to seal a Rio beth tomorrow. She and six other jumpers have returned home after their 25-day stint at Pretoria's high-altitude centre.
Mayookha, the 2016 Asian Indoor Championships gold medal winner, will be aiming to achieve the 14.15m qualification mark in order to book her tickets to Rio.
Odisha sprinters Amiya Kumar Mallick and Srabani Nanda, who were left high and dry due to the power failure at the Indian GP first leg here, would once again be trying their luck in the men's and women's 100m races, which would be the the last two events for tomorrow.
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Mallick and Nanda had hand timings of 10.09secs and 11.23 secs to win the men's and women's 100m sprints in Indian GP, crossing Rio qualifications norms of 10.16 secs and 11.32 secs respectively. But, these digital stop watch timings will not be considered for Rio qualification purposes and they cannot even be called national record holders.
The sizzling rivalry in both men's and women's 400m is expected to push the main contenders for qualification. Asian Games bronze medal winner in 400m, M R Poovamma, Anilda Thomas and Anu Raghavan, along with old warhorse Ashwini Akkunji, the gold medallist in 400m hurdles at 2010 Asian Games, should make it a compelling race to watch.
The rivalry in men's 400m is also expected to go to the wires after the impressive showdown between Mohammed Anas and Asian Games bronze-medallist Arokya Rajiv in the first Indian GP on Sunday.
2014 Commonwealth Games bronze-medallist in men's triple jump, Arpinder Singh, training abroad under the government's TOP Scheme would also be gunning to attain the qualification mark for Rio.
2010 Commonwealth Games gold-medallist discus thrower Krishna Poonia has returned to action after an injury lay-off of more than a year and she would also be looking for one last Olympic participation to cap her glittering career.
The focus will also be on Nikolai Snesarev's trio of middle and long distance runners. While Asian champion Lalita Babar has already qualified for both 3000m steeplechase and marathon, the 2014 Asian Games bronze-medallist O P Jaisha and 2010 Asian Games gold-medallist in 3000m steeplechase Sudha Singh have qualified in marathon.
Jaisha and Sudha are now concentrating on qualifying for the 1500m and 3000m steeplechase event respectively.
