By IANS
New Delhi : Athletics Federation of India (AFI) secretary Lalit Bhanot Sunday said no Indian will qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics marathon.
“I don’t think any marathoner will qualify for the Beijing Olympics,” Bhanot said on the sidelines of the Mawana Sugars Indian Open Marathon here.
He cited two main reasons for the country’s failure to end a 28-year drought of no Indian marathoner making it to the Olympics, one that the Indian long-distance runners begin at a very early age and burn out quickly, and two that the Indian runners do not have a proper schedule of running marathon events.
He also said the AFI would now fix age for a long-distance runner to start training and also working on some other measures to encourage systematic marathon running like spacing out marathon events and also restricting the number to only two or three marathons a year.
The last Indian to take part at the Olympic marathon was Shivnath Singh way back in the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
Bhanot, who is also the organising secretary of the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, expressed his satisfaction over the 21 km circular route, which has been tested for the first time Sunday, but said they are open to any alterations, if required.