AFI media
New Delhi
The Indian track and field contingent finished third with 27 medals at the 25th Asian Athletics Championships that concluded in Bangkok, Thailand, on Sunday. The Indian athletes won as many as eight silver and five bronze medals on Sunday, but weren’t able to swell their gold medal tally. The national team won 6 gold, 12 silver and 9 bronze medals to finish third behind Japan (37 medals) and China (22 medals).
In a highly anticipated 4x400m relay competitions, the Indian men’s team—Amoj Jacob, Muhammed Ajmal, Mijo Kurian Chacko and Rajesh Ramesh—in that order–finished second with a time of 3:01.80 seconds, while the women’s team trailed at third spot, clocking 3:33.73 seconds. The members of the women’s relay squad were Rezoana Mallick Heena, Aishwarya Misra, Jyothika Sri Dandi, Suba Venkatesan.
Radhakrishnan Nair, chief athletics coach, said he was expecting gold medals in both the 4x400m men and women’s relay today. “A better planning could have fetched us gold medals in both the relays,” the chief athletics coach said during media interaction on Sunday.
The men’s 4x400m relay has a good chance to qualify for the Budapest World Athletics Championships starting August 19 in Hungary, the chief coach said. Top 16 teams as per world ranking on July 30, will be eligible to compete in Budapest.
To further improve their global ranking, the national relay teams will compete in the upcoming national competition in Sri Lanka.
Indian athletes also gave a good account of themselves in the individual events, but weren’t able to add gold medals to their profiles.
India’s 100m hurdles specialist and winner of gold, Jyothi Yarraji fell short of her goal to add another gold to her kitty today. She settled for a silver in 200m with a personal best time of 23.13 seconds. While shot putter Abha Khatua equaled the national record and won silver medal with a throw of 18.06m. Manpreet Kaur won bronze with a throw of 17m.
Distance runner Parul Chaudhary finished second in the women’s 5000m. Earlier, in the competition she had won gold in the women’s 3000m steeplechase.
Javelin thrower Manu DP too had to be satisfied with a silver medal.
Results:
Men:
800m: Abdalla Abubaker Haydar (Qatar) 1:45:53 secs, Krishan Kumar (India) 1:45.88 secs, Ebrahim Alzofairi (Kuwait) 1:46.11 secs.
5000m: Hyuga Endo (Japan) 13:34.94 secs, Kazuya Shiojiri (Japan) 13:43.92 secs, Gulveer Singh (India) 13:48.33 secs.
20km race walk: Yutaro Murayama (Japan) 1:24:41 secs, Wang Kaihua (China) 1:25.30, Vikash Singh (India) 1:29:33 secs.
Javelin throw: Roderik Dean Genki (Japan) 83.15m. Manu DP (India) 81.01m, Muhammad Yasir (Pakistan) 79.93m.
4x400m relay: Sri Lanka 3:01.56 secs, India 3:01.80 secs, Qatar 3:04.26 secs
Women:
200m: Shanti Pereira Veronica (Singapore) 22.70 secs, Jyothi Yarraji (India) 23.13 secs, Li Yuting (China) 23.26 secs.
800m: Tharushi Dilsara (Sri Lanka) 2:00.66 secs, KM Chanda (India) 2:01.58 secs, Gyanthika Artigala Thushari (Sri Lanka) 2:03.26 secs.
5000m: Yuma Yamamoto (Japan) 15:51.16 secs, Parul Chaudhary (India) 15:52.35 secs, Ankita (India) 16:03.33.
20km race walk: Yang Liujing (China) 1:32:38 secs, Priyanka Goswami (India) 1:34:24 secs, Yukiko Umeno (Japan) 1:36:18 secs, Bhawna Jat (India) 1:38:27 (fifth).
Shot put: Song Jiayuan (China) 18.88m, Abha Khatua (India) 18.06m, Manpreet Kaur (India) 17m.
4x400m relay: Vietnam 3:32.36 secs, Sri Lanka 3:33.27, India 3:33.73 secs.
