Race walkers are lagging in the race to be ready for the first Tokyo Olympics qualification event scheduled at Chennai in February, mainly because a foreign coach is yet to be shortlisted for them. Artsybashev didn’t produce any earth-shattering results, with the saving grace being Khushbir Kaur’s silver in women’s 20km at the 2014 Incheon Asian Games and Manish Singh Rawat’s 13th-place finish at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Some athletes, including Sandeep Kumar (50km), shifted to Patiala from the national camp in Bengaluru. A top athlete said that the Asian Games preparation under the Russian expert wasn’t good as the “emphasis in the camp was more on speed and less on technique”. The AFI, after failing to rope in Australian Dave Smith in 2017, are treading cautiously in their bid for a new coach.

Source: Hindustan Times December 22, 2018 05:47 UTC