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New Delhi: After days of speculations, the AFI finally cleared marathon runner Ram Singh Yadav for Olympics on Monday.
According to AFI sources, Ram Singh, who made the B standard Olympic qualification at Mumbai marathon earlier this year, received the nod of the officials after clocking 32 minutes 30 seconds in a 10 kilometre race in Coimbatore. AFI technical official Haridas acted as the observer.
Ram Singh was one of the three Indian athletes, whose fitness was in doubt. Renjith Maheswary and Mayookha Johny were the other two athletes.
Ram Singh’s coach KS Mathew said he was happy with the performance of his ward. “We had set a target of 32.30 for the 10000 metres race but Ram Singh completed it well before that. We will now continue with our training till he leaves for Olympics.”
“We had no knowledge about Ram Singh’s level of performance for the last few months. He had not taken part in any meet since January. So it was necessary to make him go through this fitness test,” said one of the AFI officials.
Mayookha managed a 14.10m jump, just an inch below her personal best 14.11m, which she attained in Kobe last year at the Asian Championships, whereas Maheshwary leapt to 16.45m in nine strides in a fitness test jump at his training base at Forli in Italy on July 9.
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