NEW DELHI, June 13: A 13-member Indian athletics team, consisting of 11 athletes and two coaches has gone for training-cum-competition in the United Kingdom and other European countries.Jyotirmoyee Sikdar, who was earlier selected to accompany the team, expressed her inability to go for the competitions because of injury. Saroj Kumari, a potential junior discus thrower, who did 56 metres during Patiala trials, has gone instead. She is also eligible to participate in the Asian Junior Athletic Championships to be held in Singaporte later this year, according to AAFI secretary Lalit Bhanot.
The Indian government will bear the entire cost of the team in connection with its training-cum-competition programme.
List of athletes: Paramjeet Singh, Lijo David, Gulab Chand, Ramandeep Singh, Shakti Singh, Bahadur Singh, Sunita Rani, Neelam J Singh, Gurmeet Kaur, Saroj Kumari, K M Beenamol. Coaches: M S Dhillon and Renu Kohli.
FCI confident of defending title
Four-time champions Food Corporation of India (North Zone) will defend their title against last year's runners-up Northern Railway in the final of the DSA-OBC Institutional football league championships at Ambedkar Stadium here tomorrow. FCI maintained their winning form in eliminating ESIC (2-0), PNB (2-1) and Oriental Bank (2-1) in the quarterfinal league encounters before prevailing over Delhi Audit via golden goal in the semifinal.
FCI have dependable frontline players in Rajesh Singh, Trilok Singh Bisht and Bhupender Rawat. Northern Railway, too, won all their quarterfinal games, defeating Zakir Husain College (4-0), Delhi Audit (3-1) and Central Secretariat (1-0). In the semifinal they beat Oriental Bank 2-1. Railways have formidable defenders in Sanjay Siddhu, Sharafat Khan and Simon Peter (a former India under-21 international).
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.