BENGALURU: Days after omitting
Annu Rani from the
Asian Games squad after she failed in the confirmatory trials, the
Athletics Federation of India
(AFI) quietly cleared the trip of the javelin thrower who was not originally selected by
AFI
's own selection committee citing her poor performances.
"Annu Rani and
Monika Choudhary
were not selected as their performance in the confirmatory trials was not found to be satisfactory by the selection committee," AFI had said in a release on August 16. The news of Rani's trip came out on Thursday after her pictures from Jakarta appeared on the social media.
When contacted, selection committee chairman Gurbachan Singh Randhawa said AFI had sent her without his consent. "A few days back all the selection committee members, including me, got a message from the AFI president (Adille Sumariwalla). It said Annu Rani came close to the Asiad qualification mark during the inter-railway meet and he asked our feedback whether to send her not. I said I'll stick to my previous stand and said I'm not in favour of sending her," Randhawa told TOI.
Asked about the relevance of trials and the selection committee, if the top brass of the federation overrules its decision, Randhawa said: "Maybe the other members of the committee would have agreed. But I don't have any idea. Only that I made my stand clear."
Rani, who won the bronze medal at the last Asiad in Incheon, touched 54.32m against the qualifying mark of 59m at the inter-state meet in Guwahati in June. But at the inter-railway meet held last week, days after the confirmatory trials, Rani won with a throw of more than 58 metres. Rani's inconsistent performances came to the fore last year too when she dipped to the 57m range at the Asian Athletics meet after touching 61m at the Federation Cup in Patiala.
Sumariwalla didn't respond to messages seeking his reaction on Rani's selection.
Different yardstick for Monika?On Monika's exclusion, Randhawa said she was not anywhere near the norms in the trials. The 1500m runner was made to run at short notice by the AFI after she approached the Delhi High Court against her exclusion.
At the Inter-State meet in Guwahati, the UP athlete had met the qualification mark clocking 4:12.44s as she finished second behind PU Chitra. The AFI's mark was 4:16.88s. But according to AFI, Monika clocked only 4:41.06s at the confirmatory trials held at the high altitude training centre in Bhutan last week. Following the Delhi High Court's intervention, the AFI conducted another trial in New Delhi on August 22, where she clocked 4:35.51s. The federation promptly announced that Monika had failed the re-test and would not travel to Jakarta. However, there was no such announcement from AFI on Rani's last minute inclusion.
"How can you expect Monika to do well running all alone compared to Rani whose performance from the Railway meet was considered for selection?" a coach asked.
Earlier, the selection committee had also cleared the names of long distance runner G Lakshmanan and shot putter TP Singh without confirmatory trials. Both athletes had failed to meet the qualifying mark in Guwahati.
Vismaya tops latest trialsThe final squad for the women's 4x400m relay was taking shape in Jakarta with the coaches conducting one more trial on Thursday. "(VK) Vismaya topped the trials and Jisna (Mathew) came second. The third and fourth places went to Soniya Baishya and GK Vijayakumari," sources said.
Hima Das and Nirmala Sheoran are confirmed entries and they will join hands with MR Poovamma and Saritaben Gaikwad to form the quartet. "But if only one of them (Nirmala and Hima) is confirmed, then that that will open a chance to the likes of Vismaya and that's the reason why they conducted another trials today," sources added.
India start the relay as strong favourites as they target their fifth consecutive gold starting from 2002. At Incheon, the women's quartet, consisting Mandeep Kaur, MR Poovamma, Tintu Luka and Priyanka Panwar, won the gold with a new Games record time of 3:26.88s.