The 2019 IAAF World Athletics Championships is all set to begin on 27th September and will end on 6th October 2019 in Doha, Qatar. This is the 17th edition of the IAAF World Athletics Championships. Everyone is hoping for the participants of their country to perform well and get a lot of medals. But there are still many changes going on in order to make the Championship perfect. Recently, 200m runner Archana Suseendran got the late invite for the Championship but as it is said that it is better late than never. So, a new member has been added to India’s athletics squad for the World Athletics Championships 2019.
Archana Suseendran’s best result this year was 23.18 seconds in the Indian Grand Prix in Patiala in August. She also won a gold medal in the National Inter-State Championships with the timing of 23.39 seconds in Lucknow.
Archana is now ready to engrave her name again as she got a late invite in IAAF World Championships. A day after the International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) released a provisional entry list, the world body announced that new slots have been opened after some of the athletes decided to back out or cannot participate. Though the final deadline for the submission was 16th September but IAAF opened a window later. Carlo de Angeli, the IAAF’s senior competitions manager, sent a letter to the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) informing about that three other athletes are eligible in the women’s 200m event. The names which were brought up were Archana Suseendran, Hima Das and S Dhanaklakshmi. The letter said, “We have the opportunity to open entries for one last short window in some events where we have yet to reach the maximum target entry numbers.”
Hima Das was ruled out of the Championship due to her back injury which she has been suffering from last year’s Asian Games and an AFI official stated that, “We have accepted the invite of Archana but not of Dhanaklakshmi as she did not have consistent good timings. Hima, of course, cannot run as she is injured.” In spite of the back injury, Hima won four gold medals in 200m and one yellow medal in 400m at sub-par races in Europe. Dhanaklakshmi, on the other hand, recorded 23.24 seconds in November last year in the National Inter-University Championships. She also won a silver medal n 100m Earlier, AFI thought that Dutee Chand, 100 m runner would get an invite along with Archana.
So, only Archana was able to make the way and probably Archana, Jisna Mathew and V Revathy will be undergoing confirmatory trials with Anjali Devi, 400m runner, in Delhi on Saturday. Archana’s inclusion will take the number of Indians in the World Championships to 27.
Jinson Johnson, Avinash Sable, Jabir MP and Dharun A, Mohammad Anas Yahiya, Gopi Thonakal, PU Chitra, Anjali Devi etc. are a part of the championship. We wish that they all perform their best and get a medal for sure.
