New Delhi: Star sprinter Hima Das is confident that the Indian women’s 4x100m relay team can qualify for the Tokyo Olympics. Hima Das is a part of the team and they will have a chance to qualify at the World Athletics Relay in Poland next month.
The World Relays will take place May 1 and 2. The top eight finishers at Chorzow in Selisia will get automatic berths in the Tokyo Games. The Olympics are scheduled to begin on July 23.
Hima is yet to qualify for the upcoming Olympics. She is set to be a key member of the Indian 4x100m relay quartet. The other three are likely to be national record holder Dutee Chand, Archana Susenndran and S Dhanalakshmi.
“Dutee will also be a part of the team, we are confident that we can qualify for the Olympics during the World Relays. We should do it,” Hima asserted Monday.
“I am in very good shape and the other members are also doing good and preparing well. We have done really well (in the individual 100m) during the Federation Cup,” added Hima.
The 100m event in the Federation Cup in March was won by Dhanalakshmi in 11.38 seconds. Dutee and Suseendran were second and third with timings of 11.58s and 11.76s respectively. Hima had won one of the preliminary heats in 11.63s but was disqualified in the final race after a false start.
The 21-year-old from Assam is known as the ‘Dhing Express’. She said will be running mostly 100m and 200m in the training-cum-exposure tour of Turkey planned by the AFI from later this month.
“I will be running 100m and 200m during training. I will also take part in competitions (Olympic qualifying events) in an around Turkey,” she said.
Hima is the reigning world junior 400m champion and silver medallist in the 2018 Asian Games in the one-lap race. However, she has run only 100m and 200m this season.
Hima was asked if she will run 400m this season. “It is a decision to be taken by coach (Galina Bukharina) and the AFI. Everybody knows I have some issues in 400m, could not complete in the 2019 Asian Championships,” Hima informed.
Hima is a brand ambassador of Adidas. She also spoke about the German sportswear giant’s new initiative through a global film series launched Monday.
Across 20 films, including those of Ranveer Singh, Hima, Beyonce, Paul Pogba, Mo Salah and Siya Kolisi, stories were told through rare footages to show sport culture around the world with tagline ‘Impossible is Nothing’. “This perfectly suits me because I would not have come this far in my career had I thought it was impossible,” Hima said.
