New Delhi: Seventeen-year-old long jumper Shaili Singh, silver medallist at the World U-20 Athletics Championships earlier this year, has been selected among the Core Group of athletes for support under the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) at a meeting of the Mission Olympic Cell (MCO) here on Thursday.
The MOC on Thursday also picked 50 athletes in the Core Group and 143 in the Development Group across eight disciplines in the second list. The MOC has thus increased the count of total sportspersons in the list to 291, including 102 in the Core Group. Athletes from as many as 13 Olympic disciplines and six Paralympic disciplines have been identified so far for support in their preparation for the 2024 Games.
Among the youngest of those identified for support is swimmer Riddhima Veerendra Kumar, the 14-year-old who made waves in the senior nationals. She was named among the 17 swimmers in the Development Group in addition to the two identified earlier for Core Group, the Sports Ministry informed on Friday.
The MOC accepted a recommendation by a sub-committee that a review of the swimming list is undertaken after the World Championships in June next year and of the archery list after the National Ranking tournament next month. Some other sports like equestrian, golf, gymnastics, judo, and tennis will be taken up later.
The list of athletes selected for TOPS Core and Development Groups:
Archery: Core Group: Atanu Das and Deepika Kumari Development Group: Pravin Jadhav, Bommaravera Dhiraj, Parth Sushant Salunkhe, Aditya Choudhary, Yasdhdeep Bhoge, Divyansh Kumar Panwar, Kapish Singh, Vickey Ruhal, Neeraj Chauhan, Amit Kumar, Sudanshu Bisht, Bishal Changmai, Komalika Bari, Ankita Jadhav, Madhu Vedwan, Simranjeet Kaur, Ridhi, Deepti Kumari, Tamna, Soniya Thakur, Avni, Manjari Alone and Tisha Punia.
Athletics
Core Group: Mohammed Anas Yahiya, Dharun Ayyasamy, Naganathan Pandi, Arokia Rajiv, Amoj Jacob, Noah Nirmal Tom, Avinash Sable, Murali Sreeshankar, Neeraj Chopra, Tajinderpal Singh Toor, Sandeep Kumar, Dutee Chand, Hima Das, Revathi Veeramani, V K Vismaya, Jisna Mathew, Subha Venkatesan, S Dhanalakshmi, Priyanka Goswami, Bhawna Jat, Shaili Singh, Kamalpreet Kaur, Seema Punia and Annu Rani.
Development Group: Vikrant Panchal, Ayush Dabas, Kapil, Ajay Kumar Saroj, Tejaswin Shankar, Praveen Chitravel, Rohit Yadav, Sahil Silwal, Jeswin Aldrin, Muhammed Ajmal, Karanveer Singh, Yashveer Singh, Amit Khatri, A T Daneswari, Anjali Devi, Priya Mohan, Jyotika Dandi, Kaveri, R Vithya, N S Simi, P D Anjali, Sandra Babu, Ancy Sojan and Sherin Abdul Gafoor.
Badminton
Core Group: Lakshya Sen, Kidambi Srikanth, B Sai Praneeth, Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, Chirag Shetty, P V Sindhu, Saina Nehwal, Sikki Reddy, and Ashwini Ponappa.
Development Group: Sankar Muthusamy, Pranav Rao Gandham, Maisnam Meiraba, K Sathish Kumar, Rohan Gurbani, Sai Charan Koya, Kiran Geroge, Priyanshu Rajwat, Ishaan Bhatnagar, P Vishnuvardhan Goud, Krishna Prasad G, Dhruv Kapil, M R Arjun, Sai Prateek Krishna Prasad, Tasnim Mir, Pullela Gayatri Gopichand, Samiya Imar Farooqui, Aakarshi Kashyap, Malvika Bansod, Ashmita Chaliha, Aditi Bhatt, Tanisha Crasto, Treesa Jolly, Ashwini Bhat, Rutuparna Panda, and Shikha Gautam
Boxing
Core Group: Amit Pangal, Deepak Kumar, Manish Kaushik, Sanjeet, Satish Kumar, M C Mary Kom, Lovlina Borgohain and Pooja Rani.
Development Group: Kavinder Bisht, Ashish Kumar, Bihswametra Chongtham, Aakash Kumar, Sachin Siwach, Mohammed Husamuddin, Rohit More, Sachin, Ankit Narwal, Mohammed Etash Khan, Varinder, Shiva Thapa, Akash Sangwan, Naveen Boora, Nishant Dev, Hemant Yadav, Sumit, Sachin Kumar, Laksya Chahar, Naman Tanwar, Naveen Kumar, Vishal Gupta, Aman Singh, Narender, Nitu, Rani Manju, Nikhat Zareen, Anamika, Babyrojisana Naroem Chanu, Jamuna Boro, Poonam Poonia, Sakshi, Jasmine, Simranjit Kaur, Parveen Hooda, Ankushita Boro, Vinka, Arundathi Chaudhary and Sanamacha Chanu
Fencing
Core Group: Bhavani Devi
Development Group: Karan Singh, Abhay Shinde, C Jetlee, R S Sherjin, S N Siva Magesh, Bennet Joseph, Laishram Moramba, Oinam Jubraj, Tanishka Khatri, Sheetal Dalal, Vedika Khushi, and Shreya Gupta.
Rowing
Core Group: Arjun Lal Jat, Arvind Singh, Sukhmeet Singh, Bittu Singh, Jakhar Khan, and Ravi.
Development Group: Parminder Singh
Swimming
Development Group: Advait Page, Kushagra Rawat, Aryan Nehra, Neel Roy, Shoan Ganguly, Tanish George Mathew, Aneesh S Gowda, Swadesh Mondal, Aryan Panchal, R Sambhavv, Maana Patel, Kenisha Gupta, Aanya Wala, Apeksha Fernandes, Bhavya Sachdeva, Suvana C Baskar and Ridhima Veerendra Kumar
Table Tennis
Development Group: Yashaswini Ghorpade and Prapti Sen