MR Poovamma, India’s top 4x400m relay specialist and two-time Asian Games medalist, will not be flying to Tokyo for the Olympic Games. The deadline for submitting the entry list to the Olympic organisers is Monday. She left the national camp in Patiala overnight, citing a reoccurring back injury and requesting a consultation with her doctor in Managluru before making a final decision.
AFI ran a trial on Sunday evening to choose the women’s runners for the 4x400m mixed relay team. Poovamma, who ran a sub-54 second time this year, did not compete, while Revathi, a national camper from Tamil Nadu, was the fastest. Revathi V (53.55 seconds), Shuba V (54.26 seconds), Dhanalakshmi S (54.27 seconds), Jisna Mathew (54.31 seconds), and Vismaya VK, the gold medalist in the 4x400m mixed relay at the Jakarta Asian Games (55.34s) were the athletes who competed in the trial. The other runner was Kiran.
The AFI held the trial to choose two female 400m runners for the mixed 4x400m relay team, which qualified for the Olympics based on their performance at the 2019 Doha World Championships after the women’s 4x400m relay team failed to qualify.
