Bengaluru: In what could their final attempt, top Indian athletes will be fighting it out over the next two days to seal a berth for the Rio Olympics at the 3rd & 4th Indian Grand Prix at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium here on Sunday. With a few participating athletes already qualified, all eyes will be on sprinter Dutee Chand, who will look to record a berth in the women’s 4x100m relay event. “I focused on 100m and qualified. If I had more time, I could’ve focused on 200m too. But now there’s no time to think of 200m. The women’s 4x100 relay has not qualified. I am part of the team and will be participating,” said Dutee, who broke the women’s 100m national record at Almaty to make it to the Olympics last month.
At the same venue few days ago, the 4x100m relay quartet of Dutee, Srabani Nanda, HM Jyothi and Merlin Joseph bettered their national mark at the Kazakhstan National athletics championships, clocking 43.42sec. Having made the grade, Dutee hopes to win a medal at Rio. “I always hoped to win an Olympic medal. There are top athletes competing and I have to fight out hard with them. I have trained and will try to win a medal,” added the Odisha-born athlete. Before departing to Rio, Dutee will continue to train at Hyderabad till July 30. Meanwhile, the women’s 4x400m relay team led by MR Poovamma, S. Nirmala, Tintu Luka and Anilda Thomas is eyeing to maintain their form ahead of the big event. “Relay event is important for us because European Championship is underway right now. We will never know how other qualified countries (are),” said Poovamma.
“So, to be on the safer side, here we will try to better our time. I am not focusing much on individual events because we have a great chance in relay and we want to make the final. It is good that we are participating in this event,” stated the Karnataka athlete. In the two-day GP, a total of 23 events will be held – 13 for men and 10 for women. CK Valson, secretary, Athletics Federation of India believes numbers in the team will swell. “This event is to facilitate more athletes to qualify for the Olympics. This is the highest number in individual events compared to Sydney’s combined 24. I’m confident our relay teams will qualify,” he said.
