National Indoor Championships |Big names to miss marquee meet

Bengaluru: The maiden National Indoor Championships are all set to begin at the Kalinga Indoor Athletics Stadium in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday, days after the venue won the bid for the 2028 World Indoors. The stadium is also hosting the first competitive event since its inauguration in March 2024.

The two-day event, however, has failed to attract most of the major names of Indian track and field with 100 and 200m national record holder Animesh Kujur (competing in 60m), triple jump NR holder Praveen Chithravel (competing in long jump), leading high jumper Sarvesh Anil Kushare are among the few star entrants.

Being placed a couple of days after the World Indoors (in Torun, Poland) is cited as the major reason behind a lack of enthusiasm among athletes, who have already started their outdoor season with the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games qualification and preparations on their minds. 

"It's exciting to see that Kalinga indoor stadium is finally hosting the nationals but there's no point in going for it now," a leading athlete told DH on condition of annonymity.

"The tournament is neither a qualifying event for any major event nor have a big prize purse, I am focussing on the upcoming outdoor events instead to book my Asian Games and CWG berths."

Many other athletes cited similar concerns for skipping the Bhubaneswar meet with Asian Indoor Championships (February 6-8) and World Indoors are already done for the season. They instead are focussing on competing at the Indian Athletics Series 1 in Bengaluru early next month.

Athletics Federation of India (AFI) earlier wanted to host the National Indoors in January in their efforts to bid for the 2028 World and the Asian Indoors at the world-class facilities of Kalinga Indoors, which includes a Mondo track and is the only dedicated track and field indoor stadium in the country.

However, it is learnt that many of the athletes showed reluctance to start their season so early as they intended to start the season bit late with the aim to peak for Asiad and CWG.

The recently-concluded India Open 400m competition in Thiruvananthapuram saw three men's quartermilers post sub-46 timings — with Rajesh Ramesh topping the list at 45.26 — despite the absence of national record holder Vishal TK, who pulled out due to abdominal pain at the last minute. The women's individual final was interesting too with seven runners clocking sub-54. However, none of those names have entered the Indoors.

As far as the blue ribband event javelin throw is concerned, it is not part of indoor events due to safety limitations of an indoor arena. Discus throw, hammer throw and 3000m steeplechase are also not included for similar reasons.