Olympic Games: Srabani Nanda, two others book Rio tickets

Quartermiler Mohammad Anas and long jumper Ankit Singh booked their Olympic tickets with national record breaking efforts, while 200m specialist Srabani Nanda also qualified for the Rio Games in various competitions aboard on a memorable day for Indian track and field athletes on Sunday.

The 24-year-old Odisha athlete Srabani clocked 23.07secs at the 26th G. Kosanov Memorial Meet at Almaty in Kazakhstan to realise her Rio dreams.

The qualifying mark for the Olympics in the women’s 200m is 23.20secs.

The 23-year-old Ankit also smashed the existing national record with his best effort of 8.19m in the men’s long jump in the same meet in Almaty to ensure his passage to Rio. The earlier national record of 8.09m was held by Kumaravel Prem Kumar set here in August 2013.

The qualification standard for the Olympics in men’s long jump is 8.15 metres.

On Saturday night, quartermiler Mohammad Anas qualified for the Games by shattering the men’s 400m national record in the Polish Athletics Champ-ionship at Bydgoszcz.

Anas clocked 45.40secs, the exact Rio qualification timing, to book his ticket.

The Kerala athlete shattered his own national record of 45.44secs, which he set on Friday on the first day of the same competition at this Polish city.

Rajiv Arokia, whose national record of 45.47secs Anas broke on Saturday, finished second with a timing of 45.60secs.

The number of track and field athletes qualified for Rio has now swelled to 23.