With the 12 months 2026 a bit of over two months away, the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) has skilled its concentrate on preparations for 2 mega occasions — the Commonwealth Video games in Glasgow, Scotland and the Asian Video games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan.
India had bagged 29 medals in athletics, together with three in 4x400m relays (comprising males’s gold and ladies’s and blended silver), on the 2023 Asian Video games in Hangzhou, China. The AFI has a goal of bettering the medals tally from monitor and discipline this time.
A number of months previous to the Hangzhou Asian Video games, the nation’s males’s 4x400m relay workforce had finished creditably properly. It hit the headlines with its Asian record-breaking efficiency of two:59.05 on the 2023 Budapest World championships.
Nonetheless, on the 2024 Paris Olympics, the Indian males’s and ladies’s 4x400m relay groups crashed out within the heats ending fourth and eighth respectively.
The nation has misplaced some tempo in longer relays resulting from athletes’ accidents.
The male runners are on the trail of restoration and there’s some hope.
Nonetheless, a number of key feminine sprinters — together with Jyothika Sri Dandi, Rupal Chaudhary and Subha Venkatesan — have been sidelined resulting from damage. Constructing a brand new workforce and making it carry out at high degree will certainly take a while.
With India’s high sprinters hogging the limelight due to their superb performances since March, 4x100m women and men’s relays have been included within the precedence listing. The AFI is hopeful of a podium end within the males’s part on the continental showpiece. As two athletes —Nationwide document holder Animesh Kujur and former Nationwide document proprietor Manikanta Hoblidhar — have gone beneath 10.20s within the 2025 season, the federation is assured of present in Japan.
Gurindervir Singh is one to be careful for.
| Picture Credit score:
Okay. MURALI KUMAR
Gurindervir Singh and Amlan Borgohain are two different sprinters to be careful for in 2026. The above-mentioned quartet decreasing the 15-year-old relay Nationwide document of 38.89 seconds by 0.2 second in Chandigarh throughout a home meet in April has given their backers’ cause to count on higher leads to 2026.
The AFI is making an attempt to streamline the choice course of and is giving the athletes sufficient time to arrange for the large occasions. It has determined to pick a bulk of the sprinters for the shorter relay workforce on the idea of their performances clocked on the Nationwide Open meet held in Ranchi from September 27 to 30.
Nonetheless, its efforts suffered a setback within the depleted ladies’s part primarily because of the provisional suspension of S. Dhanalakshmi for a second doping offence.
The Commonwealth Video games, the opposite essential multi-sport occasion subsequent 12 months, affords stiffer competitors in athletics, which is clear from India’s eight particular person medals (and none in relays) in Birmingham 2022.
So as to know the general strategy for the 2 huge occasions, particularly plans for the relay groups, The Hindu spoke to chief Nationwide coach P. Radhakrishnan Nair. Excerpts:
May you please make clear how the AFI goes to pick the athletes for the 4x100m relay groups for the Asian Video games from the recently-concluded Nationwide Open meet?
We may have top-six athletes from the Ranchi competitors. Two extra sprinters shall be added to the workforce on the idea of the general efficiency in 2025. Altogether eight shall be thought of for the relay. We will think about 10. We could take a while. It’s nonetheless a preliminary stage of preparation. However as of now the choice is to choose eight runners from the Ranchi occasion.
India chief coach Radhakrishnan Nair, centre.
| Picture Credit score:
Biswaranjan Rout
If somebody clocks one thing like 10.10 in early 2026 will you think about him?
We could not. Because the coverage says we’ll choose from this, we could not.
How have you ever conceptualised the relay camps?
There isn’t a Nationwide teaching camp. We have now centralised Nationwide Centres of Excellence (NCOEs). We may have solely a Nationwide teaching camp two months earlier than a significant competitors. For each the Commonwealth Video games and Asian Video games, we shall be organising camps two months previous to these occasions. Similar for the World championships and the Olympics. This shall be only for familiarisation and make different administration work (simpler within the run-up to an enormous occasion).
What are the targets for 2026?
As for the Commonwealth Video games, the possibility of getting a relay medal is reasonably slim. We think about it as a build-up to the Asian Video games. The hole between the Commonwealth Video games and the Asian Video games could be very small. If any individual peaked for the Commonwealth Video games, then he/she could not be capable of maintain their efficiency (for the Asian Video games). The Commonwealth Video games athletics competitors begins on July 27 and ends on August 1. The Asian Video games athletics is from September 19 to October 4. In some occasions we could do good, however we’re not going for a medal hunt (within the Commonwealth Video games). We’re not fixing a goal for it.
What in regards to the males’s 4x400m relay groups? We have now been successful gold medals on the Asian Video games?
Athletes, like Rajesh Ramesh and Amoj Jacob, received injured on the final second. That’s the reason they may not qualify (for the Tokyo World championships this 12 months).
Since they may not qualify by way of the World Athletics Relays (by ending inside the high 14), it was very tough to qualify because the fifteenth and sixteenth groups as a result of these had been of very excessive (requirements). Harm haunted us too. Each in ladies’s and males’s teams — Jyothika, Shubha, Rajesh, (Muhammad) Ajmal and Amoj. Now Rajesh, Amoj, Ajmal are getting match. They are going to all be good by the point the Asian Video games start.
In the event that they prepare correctly and stay injury-free, what sort of time the boys’s quartet can obtain?
That is solely my intuition. If they’re beneath 2:58, they’ll win gold within the Asian Video games. As a result of Japan could be very robust, Qatar is powerful.
Just lately Qatar has finished 3:00 minutes and Japan has finished 2:58. So to win a gold medal you need to run beneath 2:58. I believe it’s inside our attain, it’s doable for us.
What’s the practical goal for the 4x100m relay groups?
It is vitally tough to win a gold or a silver, however positively we will win a medal. I’m taking a look at a time higher than the Nationwide document in males’s 4x100m relay (38.69 seconds). However the ladies’s 100m relay workforce doesn’t look very promising for the time being.
What number of medals are you taking a look at within the Asian Video games?
We predict extra medals than that final time. However I can’t say what number of.
Printed – October 19, 2025 11:59 pm IST
