New Delhi: A second place finish at the recent Asian Championships notwithstanding, India will have their task cut out at the World Athletics Championships starting in the Japanese city of Osaka from Saturday.
India finished behind China in Amman last month with five gold, five silver and as many bronze medals, but competing with the cream in world athletics is a different ball game altogether.
The enormity of the task at hand can be gauged by the fact that long jumper Anju Bobby George has been India's only medallist at the elite congregation when she won the bronze medal in Paris in 2003.
But the lanky Keralite has been struggling to capture those heady days in the recent past.
The 4x400m women's relay team's performance will be looked at with much interest. Manjeet Kaur, Chitra Soman, Mandeep Kaur, Sini Jose, Anu Mariam Jose and Iyleen Samantha have given Indians much reason to cheer.
They finished seventh at the 2004 Athens Olympics and followed that up with a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games, and then won silver and gold at the Doha Asian Games and the Asian championships in Amman respectively.
However, their recent timings are well slower than the national record of 3:26.89 set in the Greek capital. The top six relay timings this year are faster than India's best ever, while they clocked 3:33.39 at Amman, which means they will have to improve considerably to make it to the final at Osaka.
Three Indians will be in action on the opening day of the competition - all men - with the spotlight on shot putter Navpreet Singh, triple jumper Renjith Maheswary and Joseph Abraham in the 400m hurdles.
Navpreet has a personal best of 19.93m and has thrown the iron ball to a distance of 19.70m at Amman this year, but there are several competitors in the fray who have registered bigger attempts.
The Indian won the gold medal at Amman but that can largely be attributed to the Chinese not sending their top athletes to the Asian meet.
American Reese Hoffa has recorded 20.43m this year while most of the 40 competitors in the shot put heats have managed a throw of over 20m in 2007.
It would thus be safe to assume that Navpreet would have to improve considerably on his personal best to have a chance of making it to the finals scheduled for later in the day.
Maheswary has been experiencing a breakthrough season this year, claiming a hat-trick of gold medals at the Asian Grand Prix circuit upstaging some formidable athletes in the process. He set a mark of 17.04m in the Guwahati leg of the circuit, breaking a 36-year-old Indian record.
Maheswary, however, faces a tough challenge as there are 22 athletes in the 36 entered in tomorrow's heats who have bettered that mark this year.
He clinched gold in Amman with a wind-aided 1.19m jump and would realistically aim to make it to the final.
Abraham has clocked his personal best of 49.52 seconds this year but he will be up against an elite field in Japan.
Of the 43 athletes entered in the 400m hurdles heats, 27 have a better timing this year.
American James Carter has timed 47.72 seconds in 2007 while compatriot Kerron Clement has clocked 47.80 seconds.
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