New Delhi: A 15-member Indian athletics team will leave here tomorrow for Moscow to participate in the World Championships from August 10-18 with hopes of a better performance than the last edition of the event.
Discus thrower Vikas Gowda and long jumper Mayookha Johny had qualified for the final round in last edition in 2011 in Daegu, Japan, finishing seventh and ninth respectively. This time also, Gowda is in the Indian team while Mayookha could not qualify.
Gowda is expected to qualify for final round in Moscow also but how high he will finish is difficult to predict. He finished fourth in Paris leg of the prestigious IAAF Diamond League meetings just after winning gold in the Asian Athletics Championships in Pune last month but came a disappointing eighth in the London leg on July 27.
Indian women's 4x400m relay team is back in the World Championships, having competed five times earlier in the mega-event but is unlikely to make it to the final round of eight teams this time. The timing of the last team which had qualified for the final round in 2011 was 3:26.01s and the Indian quartet had clocked 3:32.26s while winning gold in the Pune Asian Championships.
"Even qualification is an achievement in itself. But it is difficult to say whether we can qualify for the final round or not but the girls will give their best," women's 4x400m relay coach Nagapuri Ramesh said.
Triple jumper Renjith Maheswary is hoping to qualify for the final round after a disappointing outing in the last edition in 2011 in Daegu where all his three jumps had returned no marks. "I am very happy that my coach Evgeney Shivilli is accompanying me for the first time in a major international event. My aim is to at least qualify for the final round. I am hoping to clear 17.20m," he said.
The other three coaches accompanying the athletes are Bahadur Singh (chief coach), P T Usha and Alexander Artsydashev (race walk). 20km race walker K T Irfan said he doesn't want to be overambitious but would look to improve upon his personal best and national record of 1:20:21 which he clocked in 2012 London Olympics while finishing 10th.
"I don't want to say anything whether I would aim for a medal or not. Everybody knows it's going to be a really tough competition, it's World Championships. But for sure I want to better my personal best in Moscow. If I can get a medal with that it's fine," the 23-year-old Irfan said.
The Team: Vikas Gowda (men's discus throw); Sudha Singh (women's 3000m steeplechase); Renjith Maheswary (men's triple jump); K T Irfan, Gurmeet Singh and Chandan Singh (all men's 20km race walk); Kushbir Kaur (women's 20km race walk); Basant Bahadur Rana and Sandeep Kumar (both men's 50km race walk); M R Poovamma, Tintu Luka, Anu Mariam Jose, Ashwini Akkunji, Nirmala and Anilda Thomas (women's 4x400m relay).