Focus on Shirse and Borgohain as stars give National Open Athletics a miss

Bengaluru: With all top athletes who participated in the Olympic Games in Paris deciding to keep away, the focus will be on national record holders Tejas Shirse and Amlan Borgohain at the 63rd National Open Athletics Championships which will be held over the next four days at the Sree Kanteerva Stadium here from Friday.

The event, which will be held from August 30 to September 2, will see the participation of upcoming stars as they hope to make the most of the absence of the regulars to showcase their recent progress. The athletes will be hoping to catch the eye of the officials ahead of the hectic next season which includes the Asian Championships, World University Games and the World Championships.

Besides coming so close after the Paris Olympics, the 63rd National Open Athletics Championships is the last event of the season and thus resulted in all the top athletes giving it a miss.

However, the spotlight will be on national record holders, Tejas Shirse (men's 110m hurdles) and Amlan Borgohain (men's 200m), who have put up their names and will be part of the 39 athletes from the Reliance Foundation who will be participating in the event.

The other Reliance Foundation athletes in action include Moumita Mondal (heptathlon), Manikanta Hoblidhar and Gurindervir Singh (100m), Yamandeep Sharma (Decathlon), Sahil Silwal and Vikrant Malik (javelin throw), Asian Games silver medalist Mohammed Afsal (800m) and national record holder Rosy Meena Paulraj (pole vault).

Speaking about the preparations and the competition, James Hillier, Director of Athletics, Reliance Foundation, said, “For the U-23 athletes, this tournament will be ideal preparation for the U-23 nationals, which will take place next month. The junior nationals are also coming up in November, so this will also be a good opportunity for our young athletes to get quality competition time. Bengaluru is a very good venue with a fast track and good facilities for throwing too.”

Hillier picked out Silwal, Malik, Amlan, Manikanta and Gurindervir as the athletes to look out for over the next four days in Bengaluru.

“Sahil and Vikrant finished first and second in the Inter-State and have been training really well since then. Amlan, the national record holder in the 200m and a former national record holder in the 100 m will be competing in the 100m against his training partner Manikanta Hoblidhar, who is the national record holder in the 100m," he said.

The Odisha 4x100m relay team which trains at the Odisha Reliance Foundation High Performance Centre will be looking for more glory after their impressive display at the Inter-State Championships where they won a historic Gold. Animesh Kujur, who was one of the brightest stars of the Inter-State, will be participating in the relay events for Odisha in the 4x100m and 4x400m events.

Moumita Mondal will be making her debut in the heptathlon after finding success in the hurdles and long jump events at the national level. Reliance Foundation athletes had put in a sparkling display at the Inter-State Championships, winning 22 medals earlier this year.

In the men's javelin throw, all eyes will be on Rohit Yadav in the absence of the top three Indians, Neeraj Chopra, Kishore Jena and meet record holder D.P Manu.