IAAF World Championships 2019: Avinash Sable aims for Tokyo Olympics

IAAF World Athletics Championships will begin on 27 September in Doha. 17th edition of tournament will go on till 6 October. last edition was in 2017. India are fielding a 25-member team for competition. 

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3000m Men's Steeplechase

Steeplechase is a race which combines speed with agility as competitors have to conquer 28 barriers and seven water jumps on course. heats for this year will happen on 1 October at 6:15 local time. finals will follow on 4 October at 9:45 local time. winners at 2017 games were Kenya's Consensus Kipruto (Gold), Morroco's Soufiane El Bakkali (Silver) and USA's Evan Jr (Bronze).

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Morroco's 23-year-old Soufiane El Bakkali is very experienced at art and placed 4th at 2016 Olympics and took 2nd at London in 2017. Ethiopian Getnet Wale was 17 when he placed 9th in 2017 World Championships. He won bronze medal at African Championships last year. 2017 champion Consensus Kipruto was away because of injury and only returned at end of August. Olympic gold-medallist placed 5th at Diamond League in Paris.

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Indian Representation

Indian Steeplechaser Avinash Sable will be participating in race. 24-year-old from Maharashtra holds national record time of 8:28.94. He achieved this feat at Federation Cup earlier this year. Avinash broke his own record that he set in 2018. Avinash has me clear that he is aiming to qualify for  Tokyo Olympics 2020 by trying to get to 8:22.0 time at World Championships. He is planning to move to USA for training after World Championships as infrastructure for long-distance runners in country is better than what is available in India. He will be approaching Sports Authority of India (SAI) for financial help in his endeavour.

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