Anju desperate to qualify for Osaka

Guwahati, June 22 (UNI) Anju Bobby Gorge, struggling to make a comeback to competitive long jump after 13 month lay off due to injury, will use her full energy and experience to qualify for the World Championship to be held at Osaka in August next.

Guwahati leg will be the last but one for the Asian athletes, before the top ones re-assemble at Osaka to fight with the World's best. The weather has threatened to play spoil sort here tomorrow and in that eventuality the last leg at Pune should be the final hope for her to book a confirmed place at Osaka.

Having announced sometime ago that she would be starting her season with the Asian Grand Prix in Bangkok (June 19), Anju was surprised and disappointed to learn recently that women's long jump was not part of the circuit. The three-leg circuit will have its last two meets in India, in Guwahati on June 23 and Pune on June 27.

Women's long jump event was not part of the schedule in this year's Asian Grand Prix meets as events were included by rotation.

But since Anju has shown keeness to compete, the Athletic Federation of India (AFI) has approached the Asian Athletic Association (AAA) to include the event in the second and the third legs to be held in India.

The AAA cleared the air and said though the event will have the Grand Prix status, there won't be any prize money for the winners.

After lying low due to the heel injury, Anju has recovered completely and looks up to the Grand Prix meets to regain her confidence. Despite the leg injury last year Anju managed to emerge a runner-up to Volga with a leap of 6.21 meters at the Pune leg.

The gutsy ace-jumper, however, exuded confidence of winning Gold in both the Indian legs. ''I am confident and I want to secure a berth in the Osaka World Championship'' she said while speaking to newsmen today.

''The Indian leg of the Grand Prix would be of great advantage to regain my confidence before the stiffer tests ahead,'' Anju she added. She was the bronze medallist at the 2003 World Championship.

With some good performances under her belt in June -- Anju will be looking forward to participate in the European circuit meets in preparation for the World championship. Presently, it is difficult to get an entry into the European meets as she was out of world rankings for not competing in minimum of six meets in the last 13 months.

Anju's best effort of 6.54 meters was at Commonwealth Games at Melbournelast season. Anju has time till August 13 to qualify for the World Championship at Osaka, which gets underway from August 25 to September 2.

Meanwhile, Sergey Zasimovich and Xie Limei practiced hard today amidst high wind and sun to better their performances as they stole the limelight at Bangkok posting personal bests and Asia's leading marks for the season respectively in the men's High Jump and women's Triple Jump.

A concerned Assam Government had handed over the entire security of the stadium complex to the Army, which had already moved in making the stadium almost out of bounds for normal civilians.

UNI