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Commonwealth Games 2018: Late injury puts relay squad on tenterhooks

The late withdrawal of the 5th member of the relay squad Juana Murmu due to injury puts the squad on tenterhooks.

commonwealth games 2018, cwg 2018, india relay team, Juana Murmu, Vijayakumari GK, afi, sports news, indian express Rajnath Singh and Kiren Rijiju with Indian contingent for Commonwealth Games. (Source: PTI)

In case one of their women quarter-mile specialists get injured at Gold Coast, India will have a ‘no show’ in the 4×400 relay Commonwealth Games event. This eventuality loomed large after the late withdrawal of the 5th member of the relay squad Juana Murmu due to injury.

Though, the Indian athletics officials named Vijayakumari GK, the silver medalist in the 400 metres at the Federation Cup, as Murmu’s replacement; question remained if she would get her necessary clearance from the Gold Coast organisers.

Incidentally, Vijayakumari wasn’t included in the CWG squad since she didn’t agree to join the national camp. Moreover, her name wasn’t included in the ‘long list’ of athletes forwarded to the Commonwealth Games Federation in December. As a rule, only those on the long list are issued accreditation.

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Normally, a relay squad comprises of six runners, which includes two substitutes. Rules allow any four of these six runners to be fielded for a round — heats or finals.

Atheltics Federation of India secretary CK Valson said Murmu’s injury has put them in a fix. “We field six athletes in a relay team usually. But in this case, we had to forward the long list of athletes for accreditation in December. At that point Vijayakumari was not in the scheme of things. So as of today, she doesn’t have accreditation. She was initially not included in the squad since she had refused to join the national camp. But after Murmu pulled out the situation has changed,” Valson said.

Festive offer

Unlike the women’s relay team, the men’s 4×400 metre relay team has seven runners to chose from. The women’s squad comprises of Hima Das, MR Poovamma, Sonia Baishya and Saritaben Gayakwad.

Though the athletics team was announced on March 10, the AFI had forwarded Vijayakumari’s name to the Indian Olympics Association (IOA) on March 7, a day after the women’s 400 metre final of the Federation Cup, in the hope that she would be able to obtain accreditation.

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However, her name does not feature in the contingent list of the IOA, which was given to the media on Thursday.

Fate of two others awaited

The fate of two other athletes — long jumper Sreeshankar and high jumper Siddharth Yadav — is also hanging fire as they have not been given their accreditation cards yet. Both were not part of the long list of athletes submitted in

December, based on which accreditation is issued. It is learnt that the Indian chef de mission Vikram Singh Sisodia will meet Commonwealth Games Federation officials in an effort to push for the inclusion of these three athletes. Valson has also been in touch with the technical delegate of athletics at the CWG.

First uploaded on: 24-03-2018 at 01:32 IST
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