By 2028, we will be fighting for a medal in three relays: AFI chief

Sumariwalla says the country's athletes will do better than Tokyo this Olympics in Paris; reveals project for 4x400 women will help produce champions

- INDRANEEL DAS

THE Olympics are here. Athletics produced the only gold at the Tokyo Olympics. All eyes will be on Neeraj Chopra again. Yet, according to the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) president Adille Sumariwalla, this time the team is expected to do better.

During a freewheeling interview with this daily, the AFI chief who will be completing his third and final four-year term this year, talks about the preparation, athletes who are likely to do well, future project on women's 4x400 relay, his legacy and more. Excerpts:

On when did the planning start for Paris

It's a continuous process. If you look at the programme, last Olympics these athletes were young and new, like M Sreeshankar and others... this Olympics, they will be matured.

Jeswin Aldrin and others will be far more experienced than they were before. If they do their best of 8.40m they are definitely in run for a medal. Look at javelin throw. We have five javelin throwers capable of throwing 85m plus. It is not like we are training from one Olympic cycle to the other. It's a long term vision and we keep adding to it.

On the development in men's javelin

Today it will be difficult to select.

It is not just these three (Kishore Jena and DP Manu), there are two more. There is Rohit (Yadav), there is Shivpal (Singh) who are also in the run. So there are five javelin throwers, only three of them will be able to go to Paris.

If you see the last Worlds, the top six had three Indians. I think it's a tremendous effort. Again I am coming back to what I said (about our training programme), it has to be a continuous process. You cannot produce this from one Olympic cycle from Tokyo to here.

On if we yet to produce the goods as a collective at the Worlds or the Olympics