The World Athletics Championships, the main event of the season for this sport, will be held in Tokyo (Japan) from September 13 to 21.
The National Stadium of Japan will host more than 2,000 athletes from more than 200 countries, who will compete for medals in dozens of disciplines. The tournament will be special for Tajikistan: the only representative of the country will be Favoris Muzrapov, who received the right to compete under a special quota allocated by World Athletics.
According to the results of the qualification period, none of the Tajik athletes managed to get into the main list of participants according to the rating. But thanks to the quota for developing countries, Favoris Muzrapov got the right to go to Tokyo. He will compete in one of the most prestigious disciplines, the 100-meter run.
The head coach of the Tajikistan national athletics team, Gayrat Negmatov, noted that it was difficult to get to the championship. In July, the Tajik team competed at the Road to Tokyo qualification tournament, winning three medals. However, the launch itself was aimed at gaining rating points, rather than directly distributing licenses.
"We hoped that the results of the Road to Tokyo tournament would help us rise in the world rankings, but our athletes are still not up to high standards. Three medals at that tournament was an important result, but that did not mean that the athletes would go to the next competition. Therefore, we are going to the World Cup only according to the quota, as in previous years," – he said.
Despite this, the coaching staff evaluates the participation positively: the competitions showed the current level of the team and helped identify problem areas.
"Our athletes have gained good experience of competing in the international arena," – Negmatov emphasized. "But there's a lot of work ahead on starting technique, speed and endurance."
The World Cup in Tokyo will last nine days and promises to be one of the most spectacular in history.
Favoris Muzrapov's performance will be an important step for Tajik athletics. Experts do not set him the task of winning medals, but they note that participating in the World Championships is a chance to test himself among the best athletes on the planet, improve his personal best and get closer to the standards for future starts.
