Bhubaneswar: The World Athletics Continental Tour Silver meet will bring together 187 participants from 27 countries at the Kalinga Stadium here on Saturday.
The Indian contingent will be spearheaded by a Glasgow Commonwealth Games medal winners long-jumper Murali Sreeshankar and javelin-thrower Yashvir Singh. Among the top overseas athletes will be Nigeria’s Commonwealth Games shot put champion Chukwuebuka Enekwechi and Jamaica’s CWG discus gold-medallist Samantha Hall.
The athletics lovers of Bhubaneswar and Odisha will keep track of these big names in the one-day meet, but they will also root for half-a-dozen local athletes.
The Odisha athletes who will take to the track and field at Kalinga Stadium are – Srabani Nanda (Women’s 100m), Swadhin Kumar Majhi (Men’s High Jump), Bapi Hansda (Men’s 400m), Pragyan Prasanti Sahu (Women’s 100m Hurdles), Animesh Kujur (Men’s 100m) and Kishore Jena (Men’s Javelin).
Ace sprinter Kujur, with a best of 10.14 seconds in 100m, will look to test himself before next month’s Asian Games in Aich-Nagoya.
Young Bapi Hansda, from Balasore, has been on the rise since becoming the first Indian to win a silver in Men’s 400m hurdles at the 2023 Asian Youth Athletics Championships in Uzbekistan. He has since shifted to the 400m race, and will be looking to improve on his personal best of 46.82 seconds.
Javelin-thrower Kishore Jena, who made Indians sit and watch by bagging silver behind Neeraj Chopra in the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games, has slipped in the last couple of years. He will be keen to redeem himself in front of his home crowd.
Experienced sprinter and Olympian Srabani Nanda’s best days could be behind her, but she will be aged on by a vocal crowd.