AFI to discuss with coaches before deciding on Asian Indoor Athletics participation

The surging Omicron variant across the globe is likely to impact India’s international participation in track and field events in early 2022, Athletics Federation of India (AFI) president Adille Sumariwalla has said.

While India’s domestic track and field calendar is to commence in March, the Asian Indoor Athletics Championships will take place in February.

"We will have a meeting with the coaches in January and take a call on whether to send athletes to compete at the 2022 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships in Kazakhstan in February," Sumariwalla said.

The 10th edition of the Asian Indoor Athletics Championships is scheduled to be held in Nur-Sultan from February 11 to 13 and is a qualifying event for the 2022 World Athletics Indoor Championships to be staged in Belgrade, Serbia from March 18 to 20.

The Asian 20km Race Walking Championships in Nomi, Japan will be held in the third week of March.

“We have to wait and see how the pandemic situation is during the month of March in Japan. We can’t predict whether the national team will compete at this moment,” the AFI president said.

While India’s Olympic champion in men’s javelin throw Neeraj Chopra is training in the United States, other elite athletes are training at different locations in India.

The World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships are scheduled to be held in Oman on March 4, and the 2022 Eugene World Athletics Championships from July 15 to 24.

The two major multi-discipline events of the year are the Birmingham Commonwealth Games from July 28 to August 8 and the Asian Games in China from September 10 to 25.

“National track and field camps got underway in October across India, and we hope to improve our medal tally at the 2022 Asian Games,” a national coach told Sportskeeda.