Manikanta Hoblidhar and Animesh Kujur will headline the opening day of the fourth edition of the Indian Open U23 Athletics Championships on Saturday in Patliputra Sports Complex, Patna.
The men’s 100m race has attracted a whopping 89 entries. There will be nine heats. The first eight heats will have 10 competitors while the last one will have nine sprinters.
Karnataka’s Hoblidhar, who holds the senior national 100m record of 10.23 seconds set last year, will look ahead to maintain his supremacy. He will face a stiff challenge from Odisha’s Kujur, one of the leading 200m sprinters in the country, who is competing in the 100m dash here.
The women’s 100 heats will have 36 participants.
The men’s 400m race has also attracted a good number of athletes. There are eight heats, with each having eight athletes.
Going by the entries, 38 runners will contest the men’s 1500m event, while the two-day grueling decathlon has attracted 24 entries.
On the first day of the decathlon, the athletes will compete in the 100m, long jump, shot put, high jump, and 400m. The second day’s decathlon events are — 110m hurdles, discus throw, pole vault, javelin throw, and 1500m run.
The opening event on Saturday will be the men’s and women’s 10,000m race. Haryana’s Puneet Yadav, who holds the U23 record of 29:44.64s in 10,000m set in 2022, will be among 25 competitors. The majority of the distance runners are from Uttar Pradesh.
A fair number of Uttar Pradesh runners are in the women’s 10,000m race also. In all, 12 competitors will contest for medals on the first day of the meet.
The morning session will have two finals while medals will be distributed in nine disciplines in the post-lunch session.
All the participating athletes will be aiming for a steady performance in the 2025 season to stay in the race for the Asian Championship and World Athletics Championships.
Schedule of Indian Open U23 Athletics Championships
The event will be held at Patliputra Sports Complex in Patna, Bihar from the 28th of September to the 30th of September.
Where to watch, Live Stream Indian Open U23 Athletics Championships
The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) will stream the event on their YouTube channel and you can also follow it on the live blog at Read.
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