Quarter miler Jisna Mathew, triple jumper Kamalraj Kanagraj, shot putter Ashish Bhalothia and Ashish Jhakhar are some of the top names in the 51-member Indian contingent selected for 18th Asian Junior Athletics Championships to be held at Gifu, Japan, from June 7-10, 2018.

The Indian team consists of 30 men and 21 women athletes. Having finished overall third with 17 medals that included seven gold, four silver and six bronze medals at the last edition of the championships in Vietnam two years ago, India will be hopeful of improving their ranking this year as a result of the rising number of talented athletes at junior level.

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“We have a good number of upcoming junior athletes,” said CK Valson, Secretary of the Athletics Federation of India. “A lot of these juniors are part of our core group and they train in senior camps. Sreeshankar, Jisna and Kamalraj have also competed at senior level and performed well. We are expecting a good show from our athletes in Gifu.”

Jisna Mathew, who trains with PT Usha and has a personal best of 52.65s in the 400 metres, has won a senior Asian championships bronze medal and represented India at the IAAF World championships in 2017. She was also part of the Indian women’s 4x400m relay team at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

In triple jump, Tamil Nadu’s Kamalraj ,with a personal best of 16.41 m, has emerged as one of the most promising junior athletes in the country. At senior level, Kamalraj represented India at 2018 Asian Indoors in Iran earlier this year and bagged a silver medal with a jump of 16.23 m.

Men’s squad

Gurindervir Singh 4x100m
Akash Kumar 4x100m
Prajwal Mandanna Kakera Ravi 4x100m
Nithin Balakumar 4x100m
Saneesh Santhosh 4x100m
Nihal William 400m, 4x400m
Rajesh Ramesh 4x400m
Ayush Dabas 4x400m
Devender Kumar 4x400m
Cibbin Kumar 4x400m
Anu Kumar 800m
Sreekiran Nandakumar 800m
Ankit 800m, 1500m
Ajeet Kumar 1500m, 5000m
Sreeshankar Long jump
Kamalraj Kanagaraj Triple jump
Ashish Bhalothia Shot put
Sahib Singh Shot put
Ashish Jakhar Hammer throw
Damneet Singh Hammer throw
Gurpeet 5000m, 10000m
Kartik Kumar 10000m
Raghav 3000m steeple chase
Sanjay Kumar 10 km walk
Juned 10 km walk
Kunnel Radhakrishnan Decathlon
Aman 3000m steeple chase
Lokesh Sathyanathan Long jump
Gaurav 400m, 4x400m

Women’s squad

Jisna Mathew 400m, 4x400m
Rachna 400m, 4x400m
Subha Venkatesan 200m, 400m, 4x400m
Nidhi Singh 4x400m
Sunil Kumari 4x400m
Sapna Kumari 100m hurdles
Abhinaya Shetty High jump
Gracena Merly High jump
Kiran Baliyan Shot put
Anamika Das Shot put
Arpandeep Kaur Discus throw
Durga Deore 800m, 1500 m
Poonam Sonune 3000m
Seema 3000m
Suman Rani 5000m
Dhanusha Rukmini Heptathlon
Madhu Heptathlon
Priyadarshini Suresh Triple jump
Sandra Babu Triple jump
Karuniya Muthuramalingam Discus throw
Deepanshi Singh Long jump