The Open National athletics championships, commencing in Mumbai on Friday, is not only ill-timed, coming so soon after the Athens Olympics, but most of the events in the men's and women's sections have poor quality fields.
The women's events are the hardest hit with most of the events expected to be dominated by one or two athletes, barring the 400 metres, discus throw, heptathlon and 100 metres hurdles where athletes who returned from Athens empty-handed will be seen in action.
Easily the one-lap race for women should be one of the highlights of the three-day meet with the country's two top quarter-milers, national 400m record holder Manjit Kaur of Police and the athlete who held the mark earlier, Railways' K M Beenamol, expected to slug it out for top honours.
The presence of two other leading one-lap racers in the fray, S Geetha (Railways) and Chitra K Soman (Steel Plants), both of whom were part of the 4x400m relay squad at Athens along with Manjit and Beenamol - should make the 400m the race to watch in the women's division.
The country's three top discus throwers -- national record holder Seema Antil, Harwant Kaur (both Police) and Railways' Neelam J Singh, who all ended beyond 12th place at Athens, are expected to fight it out among themselves in the field event.
The presence of heptathletes J J Shobha, whose entry itself was a surprise after her knee ligament injury in Greece, her Railways teammate G G Promila and Soma Biswas should lend an extra edge to the 100m hurdles in the absence of record holder Anuradha Biswal.
K N Priya of Tamil Nadu has clocked a decent timing of 14.10 seconds in the event and should be in contention for honours. Shobha and Pramila have also entered the gruelling heptathlon event, though Biswas has skipped it.
The absence of world class long jumper Anju Bobby George, who has skipped the meet to take part in the European circuit, has certainly robbed the event of a lot of sheen.
Poonam Tomar of Railways is expected to come out on top in the 100m dash in the absence of chief rival Saraswati Saha, who had a forgettable outing in Athens, but the latter will be present to add a touch of class to the 200m, in which she holds both meet and national records.
The standard of the current crop of women's middle and long distance runners is so poor that there will be very little to enthuse the spectators at the Priyadarshini Park, in the 800m to 10,000m events.
The same is the case with the corresponding men's events. Gone are the glory days of Sriram Singh, Shivnath Singh, Hari Chand and steeplechaser Gopal Saini; now there are only mediocre runners in the fray.
Bahadur Prasad's feats at the national level, in the metric mile and 10,000m, also look much beyond the grasp of the current crop.
The sprints too are short of class in the absence of national 100m record holder Anil Kumar. The race to decide the fastest man of the meet is expected to be a contest between Railways' Piyush Kumar and Delhi's Sandeep Sarkaria.
Services' P Sreenivasan and Karnataka's Vilas Nilagund are the dark horses in the 100m dash.
Piyush and Sarkharia look the best bets for the 200m honours too.
The absence of K M Binu, who was the first runner after nearly 45 years to break the 400m record overseas in Athens since the great Milkha Singh set it in 1960 at Rome Olympics, has taken away the class from the 400m run.
There are no big names to speak of in the hurdles too.
In the field events, the focus will be on shot put rivals Bahadur Singh (Police), the biggest flop at Athens, Railways' veteran Shakti Singh and the new star on the horizon Ran Vijay Singh of Uttar Pradesh.
The no-show, by discus record holder Anil Kumar, due to an injury at Athens, makes it anybody's game. The hammer throw and javelin throw also look open for grabs.
It will also be interesting to see how long jump record holder Amritpal Singh (Punjab), who stunned the athletics community in March by getting past T C Yohannan's 1974 mark of 8.07m, performs after missing the action for so long.
The presence of keen rivals in high jump - Indian record holder Hari Shankar Roy (Railways) and teammate Starly Benedict - should make the event interesting to witness though the national mark is far below even the continental record.
Standards in pole vault, modest at best even by Asian level, have declined even further since the exit of Vijay Pal Singh over a decade ago.
Mohinder Singh Gill's triple jump record - the oldest Indian mark along with V S Chouhan's in decathlon - have remained unapproachable for his successors for over four decades now.
Sanjay Kumar (Railways) came closest to touching Gill's mark of 16.79 metres in May 1971, leaping to 16.23m three years ago at Chennai, but he is absent from the fray.
The organisers have announced a cash award of Rs 50,000 for athletes creating a new Asian mark and Rs 20,000 for those who set a new national record.
The feat of breaking an Asian record seems unlikely but there may be a few national records at the end of the three-day meet if there's no interference from the rains which are still active in Mumbai.
