Revathi V, a national camper from Tamil Nadu, won the trial and was chosen as one of two women runners for the 4x400m mixed relay squad. On Sunday evening, the trial was held at the NSNIS in Patiala.
The trial did not include MR Poovamma, who has run in under 54 seconds this year. The Karnataka runner is the only one who has secured a place in the Tokyo Olympics.
The athletes who raced in the trial were Revathi V (53.55 seconds), Shuba V (54.26 seconds), Dhanalakshmi S (54.27 seconds), Jisna Mathew (54.31 seconds), and Vismaya VK (55.34 seconds), the gold medalist in the 4x400m mixed relay at the Jakarta Asian Games.
Revathi, like Poovamma, is a national camper and is expected to join the Indian team for the Tokyo Olympic Games, which begin in 20 days. Relay teams are made up entirely of campers. Priya Mohan H of Karnataka, who won the women’s 400m race at the National Senior Inter-State Athletics Championships last week in 53.29 seconds, was not invited because she did not attend the national camp.
On Sunday evening, a top Athletics Federation of India official informed the Indianexpress.com, “On Monday, a final and official decision will be taken.” Vismaya was the toast of the Indian relay team in the 2018 Jakarta Asiad, which went on to win gold, and her bad timing is scaring everyone two years later.
After the women’s 4x400m relay team failed to make the Olympic cut, the AFI was compelled to hold a trial to choose women, 400m runners, for the mixed 4x400m relay team, which qualified for the Olympics based on their performance at the World Championships in Doha 2019.
The Indian ladies were unable to improve on their mark of 3:39.42s recorded in the World Championships in Doha on October 5, 2019, or in the national meet in Patiala last week. The AFI’s only option for selecting two female runners for the mixed relay team was to have a trial.
