Bengal shot putter Abha Khatua, who represents Maharashtra, is missing from India’s Paris-bound contingent and as of now, there is no clear answer as to why her name has been knocked off the list.

National record holder Khatua left for Spala in Turkey, the base for India’s Olympic-bound athletics contingent, on July 11 along with her other teammates. But the very next day, she was not on the list of track and field Olympic participants published by World Athletics.

The 29-year-old, who made the Paris Games cut through the world rankings quota, eventually did not figure in the Indian contingent of 117 approved by the sports ministry.

The track and field team now has 29 members, instead of the 30 as announced by the Athletics Federation of
India (AFI).

There is no word yet on whether her name has been dropped owing to injury, a doping violation, or any other technical issue. Repeated attempts to reach her have been unsuccessful and the officialdom has decided to stonewall queries about her absence.

While AFI said it was not aware of any issue with her, World Athletics refused to comment on the issue.

Khatua was not in the fray for the Paris Olympics till she broke the national record at the Federation Cup in April in Bhubaneswar with a gold-winning throw of 18.41m.

Even after that, she was outside the qualification bracket before her gold-winning throw of 17.53m — a mediocre effort by any standards — at the National Inter-State Championships.

Khatua, who was well below the cut initially in the Road to Paris list of World Athletics, jumped to 21st in rankings with 1059 points from the National Inter-State Championships, which was a category A event unlike the category F status of the Federation Cup.

As many as 32 athletes will compete in the women’s shot put event in Paris. Fifteen took the automatic qualification route by breaching the 18.80m mark while the remaining 17 made the cut through world rankings.

Last year, Khatua crossed the 18m mark twice in less than three months, but that was not enough to secure her a ticket to the Hangzhou Asian Games, though many believed that she should have been picked. Even at that time, there was no explanation offered as to why she was not preferred despite reasonably good performances.