National Inter-State Athletics C'ships moved from Kolkata to Guwahati

Patiala (Punjab) [India], April 30 (ANI): The 58th National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships (NISSAC) will now be held at the Sarusajai Sports Complex in Guwahati, Assam from June 26 to June 29.

The four-day competition will serve as the final selection trial for Indian athletes for the 18th Asian Games to be held in Jakarta, Indonesia from August 18 to September 2, 2018.

The decision to prepone the inter-state meet which was earlier scheduled to be held in the month of July in Kolkata was taken by the members of AFI planning commission and national coaches in Patiala on Sunday.

AFI Deputy Chief Coach, Radhakrishnan Nair said, "The last date for sending final entries (entry by names) to the Organising Committee for Asian Games is 30 June 2018. And that is the reason we had to prepone the national inter-state meet by almost a month. The competition will serve as the final selection trials for the Asian Games 2018,"

"We also felt the need to relax the qualifying standards in some of the events due to rescheduling of the competition and it has been done. We are confident that at Jakarta Asian Games, we will win more number of medals as compared to 2014 Incheon Asian Games," said Nair.

The deputy chief coach also informed that starting from May, Indian athletes training at different national camps will depart in groups for training abroad.

"All the athletes including those who went for Commonwealth Games 2018 joined the camps soon after they returned to India. Training will now continue abroad and most teams will be back by the second week of June before the inter-state competition," said the coach.(ANI)