Bahadur became the 12th Indian athlete to qualify for Athens

New Delhi: Asian Games shot put gold medallist Bahadur Singh has qualified for the Athens Olympics by winning a recent competition in Kiev.

The 31-year-old cleared a distance of 20.40m to clinch the gold. The Athens qualifying mark was 20.00, according a release by the Amateur Athletics Federation of India.

Bahadur’s effort pushes him up in this year’s world chart. Just 13 others have cleared 20.40m this year. John Godina of the US is the only person to cross 21.00m and heads list with 21.32.

Bahadur’s previous best this year came last month in the national circuit meet where he recorded 19.72m. Other Indian shot-putters gunning for Olympic berths are Navpreet Singh and Shakti Singh.

Bahadur is the 12th Indian athlete to make the Olympics cut. The others are Anju Bobby George, J.J. Shobha, Manjit Kaur, Rajwinder Kaur, S. Geetha, Neelam J. Singh, Seema Antil, Harwant Kaur, K.M. Binu, Amritpal Singh and Vikas Gowda.

Anju is still waiting for visa formalities to be completed. She will miss another Grand Prix, in Italy, slated for June 4 after skipping the May 31 event in the Netherlands, she said on Friday.

Anju, a strong medal contender in Athens, said visa requirements pertaining to her visits to different countries to participate in build-up events are yet to be sorted out. “While US visa is expected this week, that of the UK may come early next week,” she said.

Once she leaves India, which was likely on Tuesday night or Wednesday, Anju plans to come back to the country only after the Olympics.

If Anju does not complete visa requirements now, she will have to come back to India to get her passport stamped for visits to the countries where she plans to take part in the build-up competitions ahead of the major event, an exercise she wants to avoid.