Worlds: Indian relay teams, Shivpal fail to qualify for finals

The Indian men's and women's 4x400m relay teams produced disappointing performances while javelin thrower Shivpal Singh came a cropper as they crashed out of the World Championships, in Doha, on Saturday.

The women's quartet of Jisna Mathew, M R Poovamma, V K Vismaya and Venkatesan Subha clocked 3 minutes 29.42 seconds to finish sixth in the heat number one and 11th overall in the first round heats to fail to qualify for the finals.

Later, the men's team of Amoj Jacob, Muhammed Anas, K Suresh Jeevan and Noah Nirmal Tom ran 3:03.09 to finish seventh in heat number 2 and 13th overall out of 16 countries to crash out of the championships.

The top three in each of the two heats and the next two fastest teams qualify for the finals.

The women's quartet, however, bettered the earlier season's best of 3:31.93 clocked during the IAAF World Relays in Yokohama, Japan, in May.

With the disappointing performances, India's hopes of reaching the finals and booking Olympic berths in men's and women's 4x400m relay events went up in smoke.

Earlier, Shivpal Singh also failed to qualify for the finals of the men's javelin throw event as he finished 24th overall in the qualification round.

Shivpal produced a best throw of 78.97m from his three attempts to finish 10th in the Group A qualification round.

The 24-year-old Indian, who has a personal and season's best of 86.23m, opened with a 75.91m before coming up with 78.97m. Shivpal's third attempt was a foul as he crashed out of the championships with a disappointing performance.

Those who touched the automatic qualifying mark of 84m or at least 12 best performers made it to the finals.

Defending champion Johannes Vetter of Germany led the finalists with a best throw of 89.35m.