New Delhi: India is ready to host the third edition of the Track Asia Cup 2016, at the capital from 14th-16th September 2016. The event will be held at the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex Velodrome. India will see a comparatively large contingent taking part in the event this year, which also is the qualifier for World Championship.

India being the host is also allowed to get in an extra team of cyclists, which would include the young cyclists that have been under training at the SAINCA (Sports Authority of India National Cycling Academy). There are about 12 countries participating in the event including India, which are Iran, UAE, Kazakhastan, Hong Kong, Uzbekistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Macau, Malaysia and the event will also see participation from Pakistan, who had refused to take part in the year 2015.

Deborah Herold, who having suffered an injury last year, still managed to grab 5 medals, is set to get some more medals for the country this time around. Indian medal tally had dropped a little the last year with 11 medals while in the year 2014 India had taken home 18 medals. Herold, who won, 5 gold medals previously would be hoping to continue her strike at the medals this time around as well.

Sahil Kumar, who is ranked No 6 in the world and has formerly won the Asia Track Cup in Bangkok, will unfortunately miss this year’s event due to an injury, which he suffered during a training camp yesterday.

Commenting on the team for this year, coach R.K. Sharma said, “Our target this year will be majorly to improve our medal tally from last year. This year Indian cyclists will face more competition since the countries taking part have also risen to 12. Deborah, undoubtedly is our key athlete and our hopes rest on her, however this time we can expect a lot of medals from the junior team as well, who are very talented and passionate about the sport. We have a bigger contingent this year, and thus our hopes in the medal tally have also increased.”

Talking about Sahil Kumar, who suffered an injury during the training session, coach Sharma said, “ It is very unfortunate that our star performer will not be able to take part in this year’s event, we will definitely miss him. But injury is a major part of any sport, we will hope that Sahil recovers fast and can join us for the next championship.”