The Bangkok Asian Games last December helped India redeem some pride at the continental level through two gold, six silver and seven bronze medals. But improving upon personal bests itself will be an uphill task against the world's best.

After entering just two -- Shakti Singh ended up 36th in men's discus and K Rosa Kutty missed a women's 800m semifinal spot by one-hundredth of a second -- at Athens in 1997, India have fielded nine members this time around.

But the absence of Bengal star Jyotirmoyee Sikdar, who landed a coveted 800-1500m double at Bangkok, reportedly due to a heel injury that has kept her off the track this season, has left the women's 4x400m relay squad weaker. The Amateur Athletic Federation of India (AAFI) scratched the male quartet following poor effort in the trialsin the wake of injuries to Jata Shankar and Lijo David, two key runners.

One bright spark could be lit by 19-year-old Sunita, who has showed her calibre with classy efforts, in particular winning the 5000m silver and 1500m bronze at Bangkok.

AAFI officials and coaches expect Sunita, who clocked 4:08.01 in 1500m and 15:41.4 in the longer race at the Federation Cup in Bangalore earlier this month to dip under the `B' qualifying marks for the world meet, to do better.

If she manages to make it to the final in either event, she will be the first Indian to do so in an individual event.

The others in the fray are 38-year-old shot-putter Shakti Singh and the remaining women's squad comprising Neelam J Singh (discus), Gurmeet Kaur (javelin) and the relay squad of Jincy Philips, K Rosa Kutty, K M Beenamol, Manjima Kuriakose and M K Asha.

Shakti touched 19.85m at Thiruvananthapuram on August 3 for his latest National shot put mark. The thrower has remained unbeatable in domestic circuit this season in bothshot put and discus, after winning the Asian Games shot put silver at 18.81m. Singh went thrice past 19.00m at the Thiruvananthapuram meet earlier this month to meet the `A' qualifying standard of 19.70.

Neelam, who won silver at Bangkok at 55.09m, is fresh from pushing the National mark to 60.28m recently. The Kapurthala-based thrower's effort brought her close to the `A' qualifying standard of 61.00m -- `B' standard is 58.00m.

Gurmeet Kaur's best in competition this season has been only 55.86m, but she was included after touching 58.00m at the final trials in Bangalore two days ago.

Gurmeet won bronze at Bangkok at 59.00m to meet the `B' qualifying mark, but how well she does in an imposing field with a new equipment -- the centre of gravity has been moved forward to reduce the flight -- remains to be seen.