Top Indian 3000m steeplechaser Avinash Sable and javelin thrower Kishore Jena will hope to fine tune their Olympics preparations in the Paris leg of the prestigious Diamond League one-day meeting series on Sunday. Reigning Olympic and world champion javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra has opted out of the Paris DL apparently due to an adductor niggle that has been troubling him for the past couple of months. Both Sable and Jena have not been in the best of forms and have not competed in too many events ahead of the Paris Games but they would be looking to get acclimatised to the conditions of the city which will host the Olympics.
Athletics competitions in the Olympics begin on August 1.
The 29-year-old Sable has competed in just two 3000m steeplechase events, one at the Portland Track Festival in the USA, where he has been training, and the other at the National Inter-State Championships in Panchkula, Haryana last week.
He had clocked 8:21.85 at Portland and 8:31.75 in Panchkula, while he has a personal best of 8:11.20.
After winning gold at the National Inter-State Championships, Sable had vowed to make amends for mistakes he committed in the last few years and deliver a memorable show at the Paris Olympics with a different approach.
“I committed mistakes in the last two years. I had gone with good fitness in the two world championships (2022 and 2023) but could not do well at both. I want to make amends, hope that this Olympics will be my best,” said the reigning Asian Games gold medallist.
On Sunday, he will be up against Kenyan Abraham Kibiwot, the 2023 World Championships bronze medallist and gold winner at the 2022 Commonwealth Games where Sable had won a silver.
Another Kenyan, Simon Kiprop Koech, the 2023 Diamond League champion, will also be a top-three contender on Sunday in the absence of reigning Olympic champion Soufiane El Bakkali of Morocco and Lamecha Girma of Ethiopia.
In five Diamond League appearances so far in his career, Sable’s best show has been a fifth-place finish.
Jena has also had a forgettable season so far with efforts of 76.31m in Doha Diamond League and 75.49m in the Federation Cup before an 80.84m throw to win a bronze at the National Inter-State Championships.
He has a personal best of 87.54m which he did while winning a silver in the Hangzhou Asian Games in 2023.
Jena, who will be competing in his second Diamond League on Sunday after Doha, had revealed that he was coping with a minor left ankle pain, which he felt after the Federation Cup (May 15-19) in Bhubaneswar.
“The pain has reduced and it’s almost all right now,” he had said in Panchkula last week.
He will be up against the likes of Tokyo Olympics silver medallist and 2023 Diamond League champion Jakub Vadlejch of Czech Republic, former world champion Anderson Peters of Grenada and reigning Commonwealth Games medallist and 2023 World Championships silver winner Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan.
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