Indian athletes depart for CWG, Asian Cross Country

Long jumpers Nayana James and Neena Varakil, also left along with Neeraj Chopra, the IAAF U20 World Champion, for Gold Coast.

National record holder triple jumper Arpinder Singh too was among the athletes, who left for Gold Coast. (File Photo)

To sharpen their skills further and get acclimatised to the conditions ahead of April’s Commonwealth Games, a four-member Indian athletics team, including star javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, on Wednesday, departed for Gold Coast.

National record holder triple jumper Arpinder Singh and long jumpers Nayana James and Neena Varakil, also left along with Chopra, the IAAF U20 World Champion.

The Indians will camp and train at Super Sports Center in Gold Coast till March 25th, before moving to the Commonwealth Games Village.

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Of the 31-member athletics team selected for CWG, Tejaswin Shankar, Indian record holder in high jump, who is currently training in US, will join the Indian team later.

Other members of the team will depart in different groups later this week, according to an Athletics Federation of India (AFI) release.

Super Sports Center in Gold Coast has an IAAF approved athletics track. The facility has other required amenities, as well, which will help our athletes in their training. Reaching Gold Coast in advance will help athletes acclimatised with the conditions, and we hope we will have good results during the Games, Radhakrishnan Nair, deputy chief coach of India said.

Meanwhile, a 13-member athletics team departed for the Asian Cross Country Championships, scheduled to be held at Guiyang, China on March 15.

Team:

Senior Men - Shankar Man Thapa, Pradeep Singh Chaudhary, Arjun Kumar, Ratti Ram Saini;

Junior Men - Bahadur Patel, Shyam;

Senior Women - Sanjivani Baburao Jadhav, Lalita Babar, Swati Haridas Gadhave, Juma Khatun;

Junior Women - PoonamDinkar and Prabhjot Kaur.