MUMBAI, Oct 20: Top athletes of the country, PT Usha, Bahadur Singh, Bahadur Prasad, Rachita Mistry and Rosa Kutty will not only be jostling for their respective places in the Indian team for the Asian Games at Bangkok but also for prize money, which happens to be the biggest in the Indian circuit.The One-day Cicruit Meet at the Priyadarshani Park here on Thursday which would also be the fourth and final selection trials for the relay teams, promises to provide some interesting duels. High on the list is the Usha-Rachita Mistry clash in the 100 metres. The latter had won the sprint over the famed rival during the Raja Bhalendra Meet at New Delhi.
This was the meet in which some established stars got a beating. Paramjit Singh, only the second man after the legendary Milkha Singh to run the quarter-mile in under 46 seconds, lost to Lijo David. Then there is the contest between Gulab Chand and Bahadur Prasad. Gulab had defeated Bahadur in the 1500 at Raja Bhalendra Meet and but here they will clash over adistance of 5,000 metres.
Amit Khanna will be there to reestablish his credentials as the country's fastest man. Khanna has been in indifferent form this year had fared badly in the 100 metres at Delhi. The man who won there, CT Dorai will be keen to repeat his success.
In the men's field events, shot putter Bahadur Singh is likely to dominate but in the discus, Anil Kumar and Ajit Bahaduria, who finished second and third in that order to Ukrainian in the Delhi meet, will fight it out.In javelin, Ramandeep Singh, who upstaged a Polish thrower to win the gold faces tough competition from Jagdish Singh who had finished third at Delhi.In the women's 400 and 1,000 metres, the consistent Jyotirmoy Sikdar will be trying to thwart the challenge of Rosa Kutty.
In the field events, Neelam Singh and Sugan Yadav will continue with their battle for supremacy. Sugan was the only athlete to set a national record in the discus when the circuit meet was held here last time.
Each event offers a prize money of Rs 5,000for the winner, Rs 3,000 for the runner-up and Rs 1,500 for third place.
Former 100m National champion, Adille Sumariwalla who will be conducting the meet on behalf of the Bombay City District Amateur Athletic Association, has also announced a prize money of Rs 25,000 for every new National record. And if the field for the event is any indication there would be many records up for grabs.
List of athletes
Men: 100/200 metres: Amit Khanna, Vikram Singh, Anand Menzes, Anil Kumar, Vikas Prashar, Bennet K Raja, Ajay Raj Singh, CT Dorai and Ajay Verma.400 metres: Paramjit Singh, Lijo David, Jata Shankar, P Ramachandran, Prabhjot Singh, K Sri Kumar, Jai Raj Pal, K G Manoj Lal, Dinesh Rawat.5000 metres: Bahadur Prasad, Gulab Chand, Arun D'Souza, Harish Tiwari, Amandeep Singh, Shivanand, N J Oman, Sham Shokeen, Aman Saini and Shashi Prakash.
Shot put: Shakti Singh, Bahadur Singh, Navpreet Singh, Kuldip Mann.Discus: Anil Kumar, Ajit Badhuria, Hriday Nand, Dharaminder Kumar, KK Sharma and HarbhajanSingh.
Javelin: Satbir Singh, Jagdish Singh, Ramandeep Singh, Om Parkash, Hari Om Singh, Vikramjit Singh, Sunil Kumar and Poonam Sahu.
Hammer: Subdeep Singh, Virendra Punia, Pramod Tiwari, Rupinder Pal.Women (100/200 metres): PT Usha, Rachita Mistry, EB Shyla, Vinita Tripathi, V Pandeshwari, Jaicy Thomas, V Jaya Lakshmi, S Vasanthi and Saraswati Dey.400 metres: Jyotirmoy Sikdar, Rosa Kutty, MA Asha, KM Beenamol, Jincy Philip, S Geetha, Supta Das and S Vanaja.
1000 metres: Jyotirmoy Sikdar, Rosa Kutty, KM Beenamol, S Vanaja, Vasuda More, Sumitra Panda and Sunita Rani.
Shot put: Harbans Kaur, Harpreet Kaur, Surinder Kaur and Amandeep Kaur and Saroj.
Discus: Saroj, Neelam J Singh, Sugan Yadav, Harjeet Kair, Swaranjit Kaur, Saroj and Harwant Kaur.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.