The world junior athletics championships have been a happy event for India in the past 10 years with the ground-breaking achievements of Neeraj Chopra in 2016, Hima Das in 2018 and many other impressive performances from the likes of Rupal, Priya Mohan, Shaili Singh and Selva Prabhu.
This year’s championships at Lima were underwhelming for India with a solitary bronze from the 10000m walk event, courtesy Aarti Bhadana- the event does not exist at the senior level.
The high altitude of Peru and illness to key players like Bapi Hansda might have contributed to the lackluster performance.
India’s athletes will have another opportunity to prove their mettle at the 39th National Junior Athletics Championships in Bhubaneswar.
The event has been through some trouble with postponement due to cyclone ‘Dana’ and hopefully this time, we will get to see our youngsters showing their best efforts from Dec 7 to 11.
Let us see, what we can look forward to, at these championships.
The next generation of Javelin throwers:
Dipanshu and Rohan Yadav (both from UP) might not have reached the levels we have hoped yet, but still they are Asian gold and silver medalists. They will be looking to put their Lima 2024 memories behind them and aim to go near the 80m mark.
Credit ToI
Deepika is expected to be the next big thing in women’s javelin. She has a PB of 55m as a 19-year-old and she would do well to beat that mark again. She will have to be wary of state-mate Jyoti, both coached by the iconic Hanuman Singh from Bangaon– dubbed the Finland of Haryana.
Junior Tajinder Toor:
For some time now, Indian, even Asian, shot-put has been dominated by Tajinder Toor with next to no competition. That’s why the rise of Siddharth Choudhary of Rajasthan needs to be followed with interest. With a PB of 19.52m from the 2023 U20 Asian championships, 2024 has been disappointing for Siddharth. He failed to clear 19m at Lima and dropped down to bronze at the Asian level.
Hoping he breaks his PB at Bhubaneswar.
India’s Junior Mondo:
Crossing 5m in pole vault, as a junior from India, is mighty impressive and Dev Meena of MP has gone past 5.20m this year. Even though he had a blip at Lima (4.95m), if he carries on in this vein, he will surely hold the NR soon.
Credit Sportstar
Rich crop of quarter milers:
400m has been India’s strongest track event in athletics in recent times- more so at the junior level with Hima Das, Rupal, Priya Mohan, Rezoana breaking through.
This time, we’ll have a fresh bunch, headlined by Jay Kumar. Jay Kumar was the only one of two athletes who had a PB at the junior world championships, breaking 47s twice, and eventually finishing 6th in the final. Surprisingly Bapi Hansda of Odisha has a better PB and if both are fit, this is going to be the race of the championships.
Unnati Ayyappa, making waves in 800m, has moved to 400m now but sadly she will be missing this event.
Murad Kalubhai Sirman of Gujarat, will be one to look forward to in men’s 400m hurdles.
Other notable ones to miss out:
High jumping sensation, Pooja, who broke the U20 national record at Lima with 1.83m, will be giving the championships a miss.
Rezoana Mallick Heena (400m) and Ashakiran Barla (800m) have had a tough 2024, struggling with injuries, and one can only hope 2025 is kinder to them.
Sharuk Khan, who broke the U20 NR at Lima in 3000m steeplechase and is possibly seen as successor to Avinash Sable, will also be skipping the event.
I am sure, there must be plenty of others waiting to burst into the limelight over the coming few days. There have been too many instances of juniors trying shortcuts to success in recent years and hopefully, the clean ones win here and cheaters are caught promptly.
Here’s the entry list for the championships:
You can watch the event live on YouTube. Link below
