Quarter-miler Jisna Mathew part of 51-member Indian squad for Asian Junior Athletics Championship

Quarter miler Jisna Mathew, triple jumper Kamalraj Kanagraj, shot putter Ashish Bhalothia and Ashish Jhakhar are some of the top names in the 51-member Indian contingent selected for 18th Asian Junior Athletics Championships to be held at Gifu, Japan, from June 7-10, 2018.

The Indian team consists of 30 men and 21 women athletes. Having finished overall third with 17 medals that included seven gold, four silver and six bronze medals at the last edition of the championships in Vietnam two years ago, India will be hopeful of improving their ranking this year as a result of the rising number of talented athletes at junior level.

“We have a good number of upcoming junior athletes,” said CK Valson, Secretary of the Athletics Federation of India. “A lot of these juniors are part of our core group and they train in senior camps. Sreeshankar, Jisna and Kamalraj have also competed at senior level and performed well. We are expecting a good show from our athletes in Gifu.”

Jisna Mathew, who trains with PT Usha and has a personal best of 52.65s in the 400 metres, has won a senior Asian championships bronze medal and represented India at the IAAF World championships in 2017. She was also part of the Indian women’s 4x400m relay team at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

In triple jump, Tamil Nadu’s Kamalraj ,with a personal best of 16.41 m, has emerged as one of the most promising junior athletes in the country. At senior level, Kamalraj represented India at 2018 Asian Indoors in Iran earlier this year and bagged a silver medal with a jump of 16.23 m.

Men’s squad

Women’s squad