Federation Cup Athletics | Shivpal Singh, Kamalpreet Kaur qualify for Asian Athletics Championship

Javelin Thrower Shivpal Singh’s 81.85m throw surpassed everyone's expectation, and he also topped the Javelin Men’s qualifications. He has surpassed the qualification mark for the Asian Championships which was set at 80.75, that too in his very first throw. Asian Championships bronze medalist Davinder Singh Kang, who also made his return after being cleared of doping charges, threw a distance of 71.53m to be a part of the 12 athletes to make it to the final round set to take place today.

"I am happy that I have qualified for Asian championship, but the job is just half done. Tomorrow I will target to throw 83m, which is world championships qualifying mark. I was not expecting that I will reach 80 in my first attempt. It was surprising to me as well. It was more about building and strengthening the body and core training. Focus on throw was very less. I have only done four throwing session after Asian Games in Jakarta," Shivpal told TOI.

Kamalpreet Kaur won the gold medal in discuss throw while she cleared the qualifying mark of 58.50 with a throw of 58.97m and 60.25m in her first and second attempt respectively. Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Navjeet Kaur Dhillon came second with her best throw of 56.36m and Suravi Biswas finished third with her best throw of 47.98m.

"I thought I could have thrown more than 61m but I was still recovering from an injury in my lower back," Kamalpreet said.

In the men's pole vault event, the National Record holder S Siva set a new meet record by clearing a height of 5.16m, beating his own 5.15m, but unfortunately, he missed out on the qualification standard of 5.40m. Dhirendra Kumar who cleared a height of 4.70m, bagged a silver medal, whereas, Bineesh Jacob won the bronze medal despite clearing the same height because he had more fouled attempts.

In the women’s high jump competition, there was again a tie between BS Supriya and Rubina Yadav as they cleared a height of 1.78m, the latter was placed second as she had more fouled attempts. Meanwhile, Abhinaya Shetty secured the bronze medal with a height of 1.75m.

The biggest surprise came in the women’s 5000m race as Parul Chaudhary won with a timing of 15.58.35 beating the favourite Loganathan Suriya who clocked 16.03.15. Sanjivani Jadhav had to settle for bronze with the clock reading 16.04.58.

The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) had made it mandatory for all the athletes to participate in the ongoing Federation Cup Senior National Athletics Championship at National Institute of Sport, Patiala, except those exempted, if they wish to get selected for the Asian Championships. It acts as a selection trial for the Asian Athletics Championship 2019 which will be held in Qatar’s Doha, where India will be the defending champions after their triumph in the 2017 edition in Bhubaneswar.