Indian shot putter Abha Khatua’s name suspiciously missing from World Athletics’ list of Olympic participants

PTI, Jul 14, 2024, 8:29 AM IST

New Delhi: Shot putter Abha Khatua’s name was surprisingly missing from the Indian athletics team’s list of Olympic participants published by World Athletics, even as she currently trains in Poland ahead of the Paris Games.

Khatua, who qualified for the Olympics through world ranking route, left the country for Spala in Poland on Thursday, along with other track and field athletes. From there, the athletes will reach Paris on July 28.

Mysteriously enough, the World Athletics’ list of participants for the Paris Games published on Friday night had only 29 Indian track and field athletes, instead of 30 names entered by Athletics Federation of India (AFI) through the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), with Abha’s name missing.

It is unlikely that it could be a technical error on the part of World Athletics, though officials of the international body could not be contacted.

Athletics Federation of India (AFI) officials were not forthcoming in their response. One official said the AFI was not aware of any issues with Abha.

Another official said the AFI has brought the matter to the notice of World Athletics.

The Indian Olympic Association (IOA), though, confirmed that it had entered 30 track and field athletes — including two reserves — for the Paris Olympics.

Abha herself did not respond when PTI reached her through WhatsApp call and text message.

Abha was not initially in the frame of making it to the Olympics till she broke the national record at the Federation Cup in April in Bhubaneswar with a gold winning throw of 18.41m.

Even after that, she was outside the qualification bracket before her gold winning throw of 17.53m — a mediocre effort by any standard — at the National Inter-State Championships took her to the Paris Games through world ranking quota.

Abha, who was well below the cut initially in the Road to Paris list of World Athletics, jumped to 21st in world rankings with 1059 points from the National Inter-State Championships, which was a category A event unlike the category F status of the Federation Cup.

Thirty-two athletes will compete in the women’s shot put event in Paris. Fifteen took the automatic qualification route by breaching the 18.80m mark while 17 made the cut through world rankings.