CHENNAI: A new member has been added to India’s athletics squad for the World Championships starting in Doha on September 27. It’s 200m runner Archana Suseendran. On Friday, a day after the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) released a provisional entry list, the world body announced that new slots have opened up after some of the athletes informed that they won’t be participating.
The IAAF’s senior competitions manager, Carlo de Angeli, sent a letter to the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) informing them about this and conveyed that three other athletes are eligible in the women’s 200m event. Apart from Archana, there were invites for Hima Das and S Dhanalakshmi as well. “We have the opportunity to open entries for one last short window in some events where we have yet to reach the maximum target entry numbers,” the letter said.
However, the AFI has only accepted Archana’s invitation. Hima was already ruled out of the Worlds due to a back injury. “We have accepted the invite of Archana but not of Dhanalakshmi as she did not have consistent good timings. Hima, of course, cannot run as she is injured,” an AFI official was quoted as saying by a news agency. It has been reliably learnt that Archana, V Revathy and Jisna Mathew will also be undergoing confirmatory trials along with 400m runner Anjali Devi in Delhi on Saturday.
Archana’s best this season was the 23.18s she clocked in the Indian Grand Prix in Patiala in August. Later, she won gold in the National Inter-State Championships in Lucknow with a timing of 23.39. Dhanalakshmi had recorded 23.24 in November last year in the National Inter-University Championships in Mangaluru. But after that, not much is known about her performances in 200m. She had won a silver in the 100m dash in the Indian Grand Prix in Patiala in February with a timing of 11.98s.