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Media Bulletin No. 1: Championship Preview of the Metlife National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championship 2005 |
| June 26, 2005: Indian
athletics season will be in full bloom at the Senior National Athletics
Championship to be conducted at Sree Kanteerava Stadium situated in the
heart of India's Garden and IT city, Bangalore from July 3-6, which will
showcase India's best in the Track and Field. This championship even
becomes more important due to its status as the basis for selection of
Indian Athletics Team for the coming World Championship in Athletics at
Helsinki. This is not the first time that Bangalore is hosting AFI's prestigious National Championship in Athletics. Bangalore had hosted 4th edition of this championship in the year 1966 and after a gap of 15 years it came again to the city 1981, which was remembered for the rising of the Indian Sprint Queen P. T. Usha in 100m and dominance of the Indian Sprint King Adille Sumariwalla in 100m. It took another 14 years to reach Senior Nationals at Bangalore in 1995 for the third time. In 1997, Bangalore city got another name of "Sport City" when it hosted National Games along with Senior National Athletics Championship, which gave birth to the magnificent Athletic Stadium Sree Kanteerava Stadium surrounded by the greenery of Cubban Park. Last time Bangalore hosted this championship was in 2002, highlighted by the performance of Anju George who created the National record in the Triple Jump with 13.54m. This year's championship will put Bangalore in line with Chennai in terms of hosting Senior National Championship for maximum time (6 time each). At present the southern metropolis of Chennai held the credit of hosting more editions of the above championship with 6 times in 1968, 1977, 1985, 1995, 2000 and 2004. Since its birth in 1963, Senior National Athletics Championship held in 26 different venues across the country. Agartala (1), Ahmadabad (1), Allahbad (1), Bangalore (5), Chandigarh(1), Chennai(6), Cuttack(1), Durgapur(1), Gandhinagar(1), Guntur (1), Hissar(1), Hyderabad(2), Jabalpur(1), Jaipur (1), Jalandhar(1), Jamshedpur(1), Kolkata(3), Kottayam(2), Kozhikode(1), Lucknow(2), New Delhi(3), Palai(1), Pune(1), Ranchi(1) and Thiruvananthapuram(1). With inputs from Ram Murli Krishnan Rahul Pawar Athletics Federation of India |