Twenty-six young athletes from Visakhapatnam have booked their place at the 20th National Inter-district Junior Athletics Meet after selection competitions held on Monday at the SAAP facility in the port city.

The trials drew about 250 competitors across the under-14 and under-16 boys’ and girls’ categories. For a meet that pulls the country’s most promising junior runners, jumpers and throwers into one arena, that kind of turnout is the first signal that the talent pipeline is working. Every kid who lined up on Monday was chasing a single ticket, and only 26 got it.

The National Inter-district Junior Athletics Meet, known as NIDJAM, is where district-level standouts get their first real look at national competition. This year’s edition is scheduled for Woxsen University in Hyderabad from November 14 to 16. Selection in Visakhapatnam was the gateway for local athletes to reach that stage.

The selected squad

The athletes chosen to represent Visakhapatnam at the national meet are O Gunasri, Ch Hemendraa, I Lalasa, K Chandrakanth, G Ramcharan, D Thanuja Avanthi, G Sree Vathsankitha, O Srinu, Ch Suryaprakash, I Suryanarayana, K Bala Ram, G Anand Rao, D Mahesh, G Seshadri, L Sai Sathvik, L Gopi, D Ashok, D Ramu, P Ajay Kumar, P Baburao, K Linga Murthy, K Ramakrishna, D Ram Hitesh, D Ravi Kumar, K Dhana Lakshmi and K Pydi Raju.

The list spans boys and girls, and it includes athletes from both age groups. Names like Gunasri, Lalasa, Vathsankitha and Dhana Lakshmi sit alongside the boys on the roster, a reminder that the district’s selection process is open to both sexes at the junior level.

Officials point to the response

The Visakhapatnam District Athletics Association organised the competitions. Its president, D Nageswara Rao, was on hand alongside international athlete and association member Shrinivas, joint secretary Ch Appala Raju and athletes from Indian Railways. Together they offered congratulations to the participants.

The officials congratulated the participants for their enthusiastic response.

That praise was directed at the young athletes, but it also carried credit for the people behind the event. N Kartik of the association was singled out for his efforts in organising the competitions, and the presence of an international athlete and a Railways contingent gave the trials a sense of the wider athletics world the juniors are now stepping toward.

Why Visakhapatnam’s result matters beyond the track

The story has a clear regional thread. Visakhapatnam sits in Andhra Pradesh, but the national meet that these athletes are heading to is in Hyderabad, the capital of Telangana. In practical terms, a group of Andhra kids will travel to the neighbouring state’s city to compete on a national stage, and the event’s home base at Woxsen University puts the spotlight on Hyderabad’s role as a host for junior competition.

For families in Visakhapatnam, that trip is a big step. Selection to a national meet at this age means early exposure to competition at a level well above the district circuit, and it gives coaches and parents a concrete benchmark for how their young athletes measure up.

The talent race is only getting started

Sports fans have always been hungry for the next generation of champions, and events like NIDJAM are where that hunger gets fed. Nobody on the track on Monday was a household name yet. But the athletes who sprint, jump and throw at this level are the people who could be wearing national colours in a few years.

The selection process itself is the story here. Two hundred and fifty athletes showed up, competed in several age and gender categories, and produced a squad of 26. That ratio tells you how competitive the field is, and how much each selection means to the kid whose name is called.

Hyderabad will host the 20th NIDJAM from November 14 to 16. For the 26 athletes from Visakhapatnam, the next few weeks are about preparation, and for the association that ran the trials, the job is done. Its members can point to a full field of enthusiastic young competitors and a list of names heading to the national meet.