Chennai’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium hosts the 41st National Junior Athletics Championships from October 23 to 27, with around 100 events across the U20, U18, U16 and U14 age groups for men and women.

The meet is one of India’s biggest junior platforms, and past editions gave early exposure to athletes such as high jumper Pooja and sprinter Abinaya Rajarajan before they moved to the senior circuit. This season’s junior results have already reached senior level: a 17-year-old hammer thrower set a senior national record, an U18 sprinter broke his age-group record twice in a day, and a group of hurdlers combined for six runs faster than the previous national record. Here are the athletes and races to follow, grouped by discipline.

Sprints:
Neil Samraj (17, Tamil Nadu) is the name to follow in the U18 men’s 100m. He broke the U18 national record twice in one day on 1st September 2026 at Youth Nationals and now holds it at 10.46s, but he said he wasn’t satisfied, with Sub- 10.40s as his target. After his event at Youth Nationals 2026, Samraj said while speaking with NNIS Sports, “Not really satisfied with my performance. I was targeting a sub-10.40s run, but the race went slow.”

That mark is faster than the personal best of Odisha’s Pratik Maharana (19), the defending U20 200m champion and last year’s 100m silver medallist, whose bests are 10.62s and 21.24s. Pratik trains under Siba Misra, who has also coached Dutee Chand, who holds the women’s senior national record of 11.17 sec and Chennai’s JN Stadium track has a reputation for speed, so both could be chasing marks.
In the women’s U20 sprints, Aarti Siwach moves up from U18, where she was reigning national champion in both the 100m and 200m. Her bests are 11.81s and 24.12s, she took bronze at the 2025 U18 Asian Youth Championships, and she joined Reliance this season, training under Rohit Manne. The step up will show how she handles better competition.

Hurdles: a three-way fight
The men’s 110m hurdles looks like the closest race of the meet, with Kerala’s Fasalul Haque, Kiran K and Maharashtra’s Saif Chafekar the leading contenders for the title. Over the past year, those three and Yuvaraj S (who is now over the U-20 age limit) have produced six performances faster than the previous U20 national record, and the record has itself been lowered three times in that period.
In the women’s U18 100m H, 16-year-old Nupura Holla brings a personal best of 13.78s of 100m H, set while winning the youth title ahead of Shourya Ambure at Youth Nationals. She qualified for the Youth Olympics but could not represent India because she holds a US passport. Chennai is her first major chance since missing out.

Race walk:
Tushar Panwar lines up in the men’s 5000m race walk after a bronze in the 21km race walk at the U23 Nationals on 18th October 2026. He opened his season by winning the 5km title at the Indian Race-Walking Championships and has the fastest time in the event. The drop from 21km to 5000m is a big change, so his pace will be the thing to watch.

Nitin Gupta holds the Indian U20 record in the 5,000m race walk, while Tushar Panwar holds the record in the 5km race walk.
Difference: The 5,000m race walk is held on a track, whereas the 5km race walk is held on a road course.

Throws:
Anushka Yadav (17, Uttar Pradesh) broke the senior women’s hammer throw national record with 67.02m this season, won the Inter-State Championships and earned a place on India’s Asian Games team. Tanya Chaudhary later bettered the record with 68.35m, so Anushka returns to the U20 hammer after an eventful season.

Nischay (17, Haryana) won silver at the U20 Asian Championships with a U20 national record of 60.10m in the discus and represented India at the U20 World Championships. He is entered in the U18 discus and shot put, which makes him one of the most versatile throwers in Chennai.

Jumps:
Sadhana Ravi (18, Tamil Nadu) doubles up in the women’s long jump and triple jump. She won the 2025 Junior Federation Cup triple jump with 12.75m and the 2025 U18 national long jump title with 5.94m. This season she took triple jump silver at the U20 Asian Championships and raised her best to 13.08m at the season-opening Open Jumps, while her season best in long jump stand at 5.74m.

With four age groups and five days of finals, Chennai will show how many of these names are ready for the next step.