Hima Das is going to run her heart out on Thursday (September19) at Pardubice in Czech Republic in a bid to sneak into the Indian 4×400relay team through back door for the World Athletic Championship at Doha beginningnext month.
Hima Das' participation in the World Championships relayevents became a matter of intense speculation after she was left out of theinitial entries.
Just a year ago, the quarter milers were a very confidentlot after winning the women's 4x400m relay gold at the Jakarta Asian Games butnow, with the World Championships a fortnight away, the selectors and coachesappear to be still scratching their heads over their combination for Doha.
Meanwhile said Radhakrishnan Nair, the Deputy Chief NationalCoach informs the media that Hima is running on Thursday at Pardubice in Czech Republicto take the final call whether she could be inducted or not.
The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) had on September 9named seven women, including Hima, for the 4x400m relay and 4x400m mixed relayraces. But it is learnt that Hima's name was missing in the initial entry ofIndian women athletes for the two relay races submitted by AFI to the IAAF forthe September 27 to October 6 showpiece event in Doha.
Jisna Mathew, M.R. Poovamma, Revathi Veeramani, SubhaVenkatesan, V,K. Vismaya and Ramraj Vithya have been entered for the women's4x400m relay, while Hima's name is missing.
The 19-year-old Assamese runner was also not entered for the4x400m mixed relay race. Jisna, Poovamma and Vismaya were named along withJacob Amoj, Muhammed Anas and Noah Tom Nirmal.
The AFI, however, played a little trick which could give a backdoor entry to Hima. The IAAF allows only six names to be entered for the relay races but the AFI had named seven women. The seventh women is Hima Das. If she does make it on Thursday, she will jump place one up and replace the sixth women in the relay team at Doha.
There have been confusing signals about Hima the last few months and she has run just two 400m races after pulling out midway through the quarter-mile in the Asian championships in Doha in April. Surprisingly, Hima has run five 200m races during this period.
The talk doing the rounds is that Hima, who won the under-20World 400m title last year, has not fully recovered from the back injury thattroubled her at the Asians but that is not very convincing.
The 'trial' at Pardubice should clear some of the confusion.