By IANS
New Delhi : Led by world ranked long jumper Anju Bobby George, thirty-two Indian athletes — 17 men and 15 women — left for Doha Wednesday morning to participate in the Asian Indoor Athletics Championships Feb 14-16.
The three-day meet provides the athletes yet another chance to qualify for the Beijing Olympics in August. It is also a qualification event for the World Indoor Championships in Spain later this year.
Apart from Anju, prominent Indian athletes who will look to book their Beijing berth at Doha include 1500m bronze medal winner in last year’s World Military Games Hamza Chatholi, relay runner Sini Jose, long distance runner Sinimol Paulose, 3,000m runner Preeja Sreedharan and J. J. Shobha in pentathlon.
The squad:
Men: T. Aboobacker, V. B. Bineesh (4x400m relay), Vinay Chaudhary,
Gurvinder Pal Singh Bhullar, Virender Kumar Pankaj, Sajeesh Kumar Joseph (800m and 1500m), Rajeev Ramesan (800m), Hamza Chatholi (1500m), Surendra Singh (3000m), Sandeep Kumar (3000m), Hari Shanker Roy (high jump), Krishna Kumar Rane (long jump), Aamarjeet Singh (triple jump), Satender Singh (shot put), Om Prakash Karhana (shot put), P. J. Vinod (heptathlon), Ram Niwas (heptathlon),
Women: Chitra Kulathummriyil Soman (4X400m relay), Mandeep Kaur (400m, 4X400m relay), Manjeet Kaur (400m, 4X400m relay), Sini Jose (4X400m relay), Iyleen Samantha Lawrence Anthony (4X400m relay), Veerappan Leelavathi (4X400m relay, 60m hurdle, pentathlon), Sinimol Paulose (800m and 1500m), Sushma Devi (800m and 1500m), Preeja Shreedharan (3000m), Kavita Raut (3000m), Sahana Kumari (high jump), Anju Bobby George (long jump), M. A. Prajusha (long jump), Kulwinder Kaur (triple jump), J. J. Shobha (pentathlon)