NEW DELHI, Oct 6: The Indian athletes will after all get some token international competition as part of their build-up for the Asian Games in December. Athletes from seven countries, some of them from the erstwhile Soviet Union, have been invited for the second Raja Bhalendra Singh International meet to be held on October 12. According to Lalit Bhanot, secretary of the Amateur Athletic Federation of India (AAFI) the objective of the meet was to provide good competition for the Indian athletes getting ready for the Asian Games.The athletes from Belarus, Ukraine and Poland are expected to be the main draws. The other countries which will send their teams are Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Mauritius and Bangladesh. It is not clear whether Sri Lanka will send its star athletes, Damyanthi Dharsha (women's 400m) and Sugath Tillekeratne (men's 400m) who won the Asian Championships gold in July. Tillekeratne also won a bronze at the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur.
Amongst the star athletes confirmed are YaninaKorolchina of Belarus, who won a brone in European Championships with 19.23m in women's section and Ludmilla Filimova also of Belarus, who best in discus is 64.44m. Korolchina should help India's Harbans Kaur, just back from a bout of viral hepatitis.
In women's 800m, Irena Lishchinskaya of Ukraine (1:59.15s) should give the right kind of a competition for former Asian champion, Jyotimoyee Sikdar. Most of the Indian athletes are already in Delhi. They were asked to come down to the Capital since the track in Patiala is in a bad state.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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