Athletes Anas, Srabani, Ankit qualify for Rio Olympics

Quarter-miler Mohd. Anas, women's 200 metres specialist Srabani Nanda and long jumper Ankit Sharma have secured berths in their respective pet events for Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

Late on Saturday night, Mohd. Anas clocked 45.40 seconds (45.40s Olympics qualification) to qualify for the Rio Games. In the process, he also smashed his own national record of 45.44s in the men's 400m at Poland National Athletics Championships at Bydgoszcz, Poland, according to Athletics Federation of India.

In Almaty on Sunday, the 2016 Federation Cup champion in 200m, 24-year-old Srabani from Odisha clocked 23.07 seconds to realise her Rio dreams in the 200 metres. The qualifying mark for 2016 Olympics in women's 200m is 23.20s.

Long jumper Ankit smashed the existing national record with his best effort of 8.19 metres which ensured his passage to Rio at Almaty.

"Earlier, Ankit produced a jump of 8.17m which was also better than the Olympics qualifying standard of 8.15m. The existing national record of 8.09m was created by Kumaravel Prem Kumar at New Delhi on August 5, 2013," AFI wrote on Facebook.

The 21-year-old Anas from Kerala seemed to be in que for qualifying for quite some time. Earlier, he clocked 45.44 seconds at the Poland Senior National Championships on June 24, which was a new national record and prior to that he clocked 45.75s at the 20th Federation Cup National Senior Athletics Championships 2016 on April 29, 2016.

Rajiv Arokia, who was the previous national record holder with 45.47 seconds, finished second with a timing of 45.6s.

Earlier on Saturday, sprinter Dutee Chand made the cut for the women's 100-metre race at the Rio Olympics.

Now, the number of track and field athletes who have qualified for Rio Olympics has grown to 23.

--IANS

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