Suraj Panwar had missed the automated qualification normal for the Paris Olympics by one second within the 20km occasion on the race strolling Nationals in Ranchi early final 12 months the place he clocked 1:20.11s for the silver.
The 23-year-old from Uttarakhand should have been fairly thrilled when he made the lower this 12 months, clocking 1:19.43.08s (Olympics entry normal 1:20.10s) for the silver, on the race strolling Nationals in Chandigarh in January. That will have positioned him second within the checklist of Indians who could be flying for subsequent month’s Paris Olympics.
Sadly, the World Athletics has now made all the primary day’s outcomes of the two-day Nationals invalid, marking them as IRM (invalid outcomes marks) on its web site.
Together with his private finest time cancelled, Suraj will now must rush and do a quick time someplace earlier than the June 30 deadline to go to Paris for his finest time now within the qualification interval is 1:20.11 which he clocked in Ranchi final 12 months. That may even imply that Punjab’s Akshdeep Singh, who bettered his personal nationwide document to win the gold, might now lose his new document (1:19:37.56).
Walkers have an extended qualification interval to make the lower for Paris (December 31, 2022-June 30, 2024) and Akshdeep (1:19.55, in India final 12 months), Ram Baboo (1:20.00, Slovakia), Vikash Singh (1:20.05, Japan) and Paramjeet Singh (1:20.08, Japan) have already achieved the automated qualification normal earlier or in different worldwide meets whereas Suraj, who just about had a confirmed berth, has been omitted. By the best way, solely three can go to Paris.
One couldn’t get via to Adille Sumariwalla, the Athletics Federation of India president, for particulars on the world physique’s transfer. And Stanley Jones, the chairman of AFI’s technical committee, couldn’t provide any readability on the problem.
“I’m not conscious of this, I don’t know…as a result of I don’t get something,” Jones instructed The Hindu on Thursday.
Nevertheless one technical official, who was on the Chandigarh Nationals however who didn’t want to be named, stated there was a difficulty with a transponder (which counts the laps and takes timings) on the venue on the primary day and that may very well be the rationale for the outcomes being made invalid by World Athletics.