I will focus on qualifying for CWG, Asiad, says Lalita Babar

Mumbai: India's seasoned long distance racer Lalita Babar is aiming to use tomorrow's 11th Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon to attain the qualifying time for the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games, which are scheduled later this year.

Babar, who was the best among Indian women who took part in the last two years of the Mumbai Marathon, said today that she is focusing more on the time she needed to clock and qualify for the quadrennial extravaganzas.

"The chances of winning (among Indian women) is high as I have practised well. I will try to break the record because last year my record was 2:53:42 and this time I will try to keep it below 2:50:00. My targets are the Asian and the Commonwealth Games and to qualify for those I have to keep it below 2:50:00, so that I can come closer to it," she said on the eve of the competition.

The CWG are to be held in Glasgow, Scotland, in July-August to be followed by the Asiad in Incheon, South Korea in September-October.

"If I qualify for them, then it would be very good. It is more important to qualify than win among the Indian athletes, because I want to participate in the Asian Games and Commonwealth Games," she said.

She said the qualifying time for both the multi-discipline events have been fixed at 2:45:00 and she had clocked her personal best (2:53:33) in the 2012 Mumbai Marathon.

The 25-year old Central Railway ticket-checker said she hasn't undergone any particular training for the race and had started training for it only over the last one month.

"I didn't do any separate training for the marathon, but did what was needed for the normal track events. Over the last one month, I have been training for the marathon. There were no international marathons (for us) in 2013, so we were just keeping the Asian Games and Commonwealth Games as the target," she said.

Babar, who hails from Satara in Maharashtra and trains under J S Bhatia and Renu Kohli at the national camp in Bangalore, regretted that she cannot expect a stiff competition tomorrow.

"I am not expecting any competition because I have done 2:53 and nobody is in that range. I want some other girl to come in that range, so that we have a competition and the timing will get better," she said.

Asian Games gold-medallist Sudha Singh and long distance runner Kavita Raut are expected to arrive today evening for the marathon, according to Babar.

Rohini Raut, who finished third among the Indian women athletes last year, will be running with her twin sister Monica for the first time in a full marathon.

Rohini, daughter of a truck driver, said she will try to dip under the 3-hour mark.

The 23-year-old athlete from Nagpur had clocked 3:03.21 last year and will try to be near the 2:55:00 mark.