High Indian athletes competing in a girls's 400m race on the Inter-State Athletics Championships in Chennai's Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium have been left stranded as they discovered themselves ready on the beginning line of the monitor as they have been summoned 20 minutes early for his or her semi-final race.
Though the race was scheduled to start at 8pm, the eight athletes within the first girls's 400m semifinal have been known as to the monitor at 7.40 pm. In line with technical officers on the venue, the observe is to name the gamers to the monitor from the warm-up space no more than a minute earlier than their begin time in all circumstances.
Nevertheless, as an alternative of listening to the starters pistol, the athletes, together with junior World medalist Priya Mohan ended up standing because the Tamil Nadu Sports activities Minister Siva V Meyyanathan, the chief visitor of the night, started to talk.
The race would lastly begin after Meyyanathan concluded his speech practically 20 minutes later. Nevertheless, the delay was lower than superb for the athletes who had been left ready for an prolonged interval after already warming up.
"Once we heat up, it prompts our muscular tissues however when there's such a big time hole (between the warmup and the beginning of the race) our muscular tissues contract as a result of the physique cools down, which impacts our efficiency", stated an athlete after ending the race, whereas her rivals agreed.
The meet document for the 400m is 51.13 set by Hima Das in 2018 . Nevertheless, not one of the athletes clocked timings wherever near this with the quickest time being 52.34 within the semi-final heats.
