Jakarta: The spotlight will be on Neeraj Chopra and Hima Das while Dutee Chand would look to prove a point when India’s track and field athletes begin their campaign in the Asian Games here Saturday.
The rise of young athletes and consistency shown by the established names such as Mohammed Anas, Seema Punia and Jinson Johnson has given hopes of India bettering their medal tally of the last edition. Of India’s 57 medals at the last edition, athletics had delivered 13, including two golds.
India have never won a javelin gold in the Asian Games and Chopra is expected to change this piece of statistics. However, 2016 under-20 World Champion will face stiff competition Chinese Taipei’s Cheng Chao Tsun who has a best throw of 91.36m. But then Tsun has been plagued by an elbow injury for some time now.
Hima, on the other hand, has had a sensational rise after starting her career as late as 2016. Her timing of 51.32 seconds at the Commonwealth Games placed her sixth in a world-class field. However, unless Bahrain’s Salwa Eid Naser goofs up big time, Hima will have to wait for her first Asiad gold.
The Nigerian-born Naser is the 2017 World Championships silver medallist and has won four legs of the prestigious Diamond League Series this year. Her 49.08 seconds timing while finishing second in the Monaco leg Diamond League last month is the Asian record and second leading time in the world this season.
The 22-year-old Dutee bettered her own 100m national record at the Inter-State National Championships in June by clocking 11.29 seconds in semifinals. She won gold with a timing of 11.32 seconds.
However, these timings are behind China’s Wei Yongli (10.99s), Bahrain’s Hajar Saad Al Ameeri (11.17s) and Kazakhstan’s Viktoria Zyabkina (11.20), who will all be part of the field. So it is highly unlikely that Dutee will finish on top of the podium, but just may be a part of it.
