Animesh Kujur in spotlight, Amlan Borgohain and Murali Sreeshankar look to deliver on big stage

Kalinga stadium welcomes 160 athletes from 17 nations for bronze-level Continental TourBHUBANESWAR: After the Asian Athletics Championships in 2017, the city is all set to hold a major athletics event, the Bronze level Continental Tour at the Kalinga Stadium on Sunday.

While as many as 160 athletes from 17 different countries will be taking part in the event, one athlete who remains the cynosure of all eyes is Animesh Kujur.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!The national record holder in both 100m and 200m, Kujur has been having a brilliant season and will be eager to make the qualifying time of 20.16 seconds in 200m and qualify for the World Championships.

Even as he sweated it out on Friday evening under the watchful eyes of his coach Martin Owens, there were numerous other athletes who egged him on to breach the mark.Later, Kujur spoke about what makes him run like the way he does. “It’s the little things that you need to work on that help you go fast.”Among the other Indian sprinters who will also want to put up an impressive show, is Amlan Borgohain. He was part of the 4x100m relay team that set a national record early this year and grabbed the sprint double at the Indian Open athletics meet in Nadiad, Gujarat.In the men’s long jump, the big attraction will be Murali Sreeshankar.

Continuing his comeback journey from a knee surgery, he won the title at Qosanov Memorial in Almaty earlier this week with a jump of 7.94m. It wasn’t anywhere near his PB of 8.41m and he will be looking to continue his good show in Bhubaneswar, too. Among the women long jumpers, the spotlight will be on Shaili Singh, who will clearly be the favourite in the absence of Ancy Sojan.In triple jump, Abdulla Aboobacker will be the favourite.

He is coming into the event having won the title at the Qosanov Memorial with a leap of 16.08m. In the 800m, Mohammed Afsal will look to better his NR of 1:44.93 — achieved in Poland in July this year — and make it to the Worlds, where the qualifying mark is 1:44.50.In men’s javelin, the star attraction will be Sachin Yadav, who has a season-best throw of 85.16m. But he will get tough competition from the two Sri Lankan throwers – Sumedha Ranasinghe and Rumesh Pathirage.The women’s javelin will see Annu Rani continue her good show. A 60m plus throw came after a long gap — at a Poland meet early this week.Among the foreign contingent, Malaysia’s Muhd Azeem Fahmi will be a huge crowd puller. The sprinter holds the national record of 10.09s and also has a time of 10.01s but it was wind-assisted.