Ace long jumpers Murali Sreeshankar and Ancy Sojan think the World Athletics Continental Tour Silver meet, to be held at the Kalinga Stadium here on Saturday, will serve as a preparatory platform for the upcoming Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.

At a build-up press conference for the $75,000 Silver meet here on Thursday, Sreeshankar, who recently landed his second silver medal at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, said the competition, featuring athletes from across the globe, would test the Indians ahead of the continental extravaganza.

“This is a good preparatory event leading up to the Asian Games. The Asian Games is just 29 days away. This is a good pit stop to assess where our training and physical fitness stand. The field is also very strong,” said Sreeshankar.

Ancy, who broke Anju Bobby George’s 22-year-old record at the same venue during the National inter-state meet in June, had similar thoughts. “Going through this competition, we can know what we need to do (to improve ourselves) and cover it all. This is part of the preparations,” said Ancy.

Athletics Federation of India (AFI) Planning Commission chairman Lalit Bhanot said, “Our aim is to give exposure to maximum Indian athletes. The National camp for the Asian Games is also going on here.”

Odisha Sports Minister Suryabanshi Suraj said, “The experience of organising this event will help us as we will host the World Indoor and Asian Indoor athletics championships in 2028.” He informed that entry for the Silver meet will be free for the spectators.

In his “best physical condition ever”, long jumper M. Sreeshankar, who missed the 2022 Commonwealth Games gold in Birmingham on countback, cannot wait to “change the colour of the metal” when the athletics competition gets underway at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games on July 27.

“This time, the chances are looking really good. We have a good opportunity to win two medals (Lokesh Sathyanathan and I),” the 27-year-old said during a virtual media interaction on Tuesday.

Sreeshankar says that the 2023 World Championships silver medallist and Paris 2024 Olympic silver medallist Wayne Pinnock might not compete in Glasgow because he is in the process of switching his sporting allegiance from Jamaica to Turkiye.

“Pinnock is switching his allegiance to Turkiye. So, he won’t be competing. But I think the 2019 world champion Tajay Gayle is competing. I think there will be two Jamaicans and two Australians in Glasgow. Competition in athletics in general, especially in long jump, has always been very strong. I’m pretty excited,” he said.

Sreeshankar said he has been training in Spała, Poland, for the past three weeks to acclimatise to the weather conditions expected in Glasgow.

“Spała is the best place to train right now. Not just in terms of the weather but also in terms of the tracks. Because the track we have in Spała is Mondo, which is the same surface that we will have in Glasgow”.