Chief National Athletic Coach Radhakrishnan Nair expressed his dissatisfaction with the women's relay team's performance.
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Based on the recent performance at the Asian Championships, India appears to face significant challenges in the women’s 4x400m relay, a category where they have been reigning champions in the past five editions of the Asian Games and hold the Games’ record. With the Asian Games 2022 just two months away, the struggle to find a proper combination for the relay team was evident when the India women’s 4 X 400m relay team secured a third-place finish at the Bangkok Asians on Sunday.
Aishwarya Mishra, Jyothika Dandi, Rezoana Mallick, and Subha Venkateshan are the athletes who competed for India at the Asian Athletics Championships 2023 in the women’s 4 X 400m relay. The women’s relay team claimed the bronze medal with a timing of 3:33.27 secs. The nation ended their campaign with a total of 27 medals and equaled their most successful campaign which they have previously achieved in 2017 in Bhubaneswar, India.
Chief National Athletic Coach Radhakrishnan Nair expressed his dissatisfaction with the women’s relay team’s performance. “I’m not satisfied. There was mismanagement of running order And since there were no heats, we did know about the form of the other girls in the team.” However, he remained optimistic as he stated that things will be different in the upcoming Asian Games, as they have a different group of girls joining the team.
One notable addition to the team is Himanshi Malik, who impressively clocked 51.76s for the silver at the recent National Inter-state Athletics Championships, the only Athletics Federation of India (AFI) meet which she participated in this year. The federation is pleased to include her in the squad. However, Anjali Devi, who held the title of the fastest Indian quarter-miler this year, unfortunately faces exclusion after failing a dope test. Just before the Asian Athletics Championships 2023, the report was released with Anjali being tested positive for the banned substance GW1516.
The relay teams, comprising men, women, and mixed categories, are also striving to qualify for next month’s World Athletics Championships 2023 in Budapest. To improve their timings, they are scheduled to compete in a Sri Lankan meet in Colombo on July 30, as confirmed by the chief coach. As of now, the Indian men’s team is placed 15th in the Road to Budapest rankings, while the women’s team holds the 31st position, and the mixed team is positioned at the 17th spot.
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