File photo of Shivpal Singh.
India's javelin star Shivpal Singh has suffered an early jolt in his preparation for this year’s Tokyo Olympics, as the 26-year-old track and field athlete will sit out of the first major national tournament of the season in Federation Cup due to a nagging ankle injury.
The athlete, who has already qualified for the Olympics last year with an impressive 85.47m throw in South Africa last year, injured his left ankle while training and has been advised not to throw until recovery and restricted to light training. Shivpal is expected to recover in a week's time with the Federation Cup slated in Patiala from March 15.
"I am having a slight injury on my block leg's ankle which is my left ankle and has been advised not to do any throws and running until I recover. It doesn't look major but I won't recover in time for the Federation Cup," Shivpal told Indiatvnews.com from Patiala.
Shivpal's name is already missing from the entry list of the competition with Neeraj Chopra — who rewrote his national record in Patiala last week with an 88.07m throw at the Indian Grand Prix III — and fellow campers Sahil Silwal and Rohit Yadav among the entrants. Shivpal also competed at IGP III last week where he took the silver with an 81.63m behind Neeraj, while Silwal also impressed with an 80.65m throw.
Some big names missing among Fed Cup entrants
Hima Das, who has shifted focus to sprint events from 400m for the Olympics and competed at the IGPs with decent timings, is not among the 100m and 200m entrants for the competition while Triple jump national record holder Arpinder Singh, who was training in Punjab post-COVID-19 lockdown, is not in the list as well.
Among AFI's 400m relay runners, Nirmal Noah Tom, who was reportedly injured, is again missing from the list while VK Vismaya, who didn't compete at the IGPs earlier and is among the fastest women quarter-milers, is an entrant in the 400m individual along with MR Poovamma and Kiran Pahal. Anjali Devi, who clocked an impressive 51.53 seconds — second fastest behind Hima Das (50.79 secs) in the — is also missing from the list. She earlier competed in the IGP, clocking 23.57 secs.
AFI president Adille Sumariwalla earlier confirmed to the website that fitness and injuries of the 400m runners are not an issue at the moment.
Among the distance runners, veteran Sudha Singh isn't among the entrants for any of her forte events 3000m steeplechase and marathon. Sudha earlier confirmed to the website that she won't be competing at the Federation Cup as she won't recover in time for the event after participating in the New Delhi Marathon last Sunday. She claimed gold in the marathon race but couldn't breach her target of Olympic qualification as she was (2:43:41 seconds) more than 13 minutes off the Tokyo cut-off mark (2:30:00s).
