New Delhi: In a major surprise, shot putter Abha Khatua found her name missing from the Indian athletics team’s list for the Paris Olympics, published by the World Athletics. Khatua, who qualified for the Paris Olympics, through the world ranking route, has already left for Poland with other track and field athletes last Thursday. The athletes will then reach Paris from Poland on July 28.
The World Athletics published the list of participants for the Paris Olympics on Friday night which had 29 Indian athletes instead of 30 names entered by Athletics Federation of India (AFI) through the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), Khatua was the only one missing from the list.
It is unlikely that it could be a technical error on the part of World Athletics, though officials of the international body could not be contacted. AFI officials were not forthcoming in their response. One official said the AFI was not aware of any issues with Khatua.
Another official said the AFI has brought the matter to the notice of World Athletics. The IOA, though, confirmed that it had entered 30 track and field athletes – including two reserves – for the Paris Olympics. Khatua is yet to comment on the matter.
The 29-year-old was not initially in the frame of making it to the Olympics till she broke the national record at the Federation Cup in April in Bhubaneswar with a gold winning throw of 18.41m. Even after that, she was outside the qualification bracket before her gold winning throw of 17.53m at the National Inter-State Championships took her to the Paris Games through world ranking quota.
Khatua, who was well below the cut initially in the Road to Paris list of World Athletics, jumped to 21st in world rankings with 1059 points from the National Inter-State Championships, which was a category A event unlike the category F status of the Federation Cup.
Thirty-two athletes will compete in the women’s shot put event in Paris. Fifteen took the automatic qualification route by breaching the 18.80m mark while 17 made the cut through world rankings.
