IAAF World Championships 2019: Avinash Sable aims for Tokyo Olympics

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

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3000m Men's Steeplechase

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

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

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Indian Representation

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

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