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Ill-health ends Tintu Luka’s hopes of making IAAF World Championships cut
Tintu Luka’s hopes of making it to the IAAF World Championships in London are all but over after ill-health forced her to skip the last qualifying event for the tournament
India’s top middle-distance runner Tintu Luka out of the race for the IAAF World Championships to be held in London next month.
The national 800m champion missed the inter-state athletics championships that got underway on Saturday at Guntur (Andhra Pradesh) due to ill-health.
The national meet is the last qualifying event for the London event.
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Tintu, a trainee of PT Usha, has been suffering from flu. It spoiled her chances of defending the 800m title at the Asian Athletics Championships held in Bhubaneswar from July 6-9. She had to pull out midway through the 800m race.
Gold at the continental meet would have meant automatic qualification for the Worlds. It was the second time in four weeks that she had to quit the 800m race.
At Patiala’s Federation Cup held during the first week of June, she dropped out after 300 metres.
She though raced in an international event in Almaty in the last week of June, her time of 2:03 secs slower than the entry standard of 2:01 seconds.
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At Guntur, two meet records were improved. However, top runners failed to qualify for the Worlds.
The men’s 400m hurdles gold medallist Jabir MP too failed to achieve the qualification time of 49.35 secs. His winning time was 50.33 secs.
As expected G Lakshmanan was the winner in men’s 5000m race with a time of 14:07.76 secs. By virtue of winning gold at the Asian meet, he has already booked a berth at the London competition.
