Preeja, Kavita fail to qualify for Olympics

Asian Games medallists Preeja Sreedharan's and Kavita Raut's Olympic dreams came crashing down after they failed to make the cut for London in the 10,000m at the FIDAL Piedmont Track Meeting at Santhia, Italy.

In their last qualification attempt before the July 8 deadline, both Preeja and Kavita had to abandon the race yesterday after 6000m as they failed to chase the target time.

According to information received, both Preeja and Kavita started off their run well with a comfortable pace of 3:10.00s sec per/km, well within the target pace.

Their pace, however, started slowing down at the 3,000m mark and they finished the 5,000m mark in 16:28.00s which was still within range. But both the runners finally had to give up their chase for target time in the 6,000m mark.

The Olympic 'B' standard qualification mark for women's 10,000m is set at 32:10.00s.

Preeja won a gold in 10,000m and silver in 5,000m in 2010 Asian Games, while Kavita bagged the silver in 10,000m and bronze in 5,000m behind Preeja in Guangzhou two years ago.

India, meanwhile, will be fielding its second largest track and field contingent in the history of Olympics after 14 athletes have achieved Olympic 'A' and 'B' qualification standards.

In 2000 Sydney Olympics, a record 24 athletes have represented India in track and field events.