Bangkok, July 16
Unheralded Abha Khatua equalled the women’s shot put national record on her way to finishing second, while Jyothi Yarraji and Parul Chaudhary clinched their second medals — both silver — as India ended its campaign at the Asian Athletics Championships with 27 medals and a third-place finish.
India won 13 medals on the final day for a total of 27 — six gold, 12 silver and nine bronze. It equalled the country’s best medal haul in the event, achieved in the 2017 edition in Bhubaneswar. But India had won nine gold in 2017 to top the table.
The 28-year-old Khatua made an improvement of 93cm from her personal best of 17.13m as she recorded a distance of 18.06m with her fourth throw. She finished second behind Song Jiayuan (18.88m) of China. Veteran Manpreet Kaur, whose national record Khatua equalled, won bronze with a first-round throw of 17m.
“This year, I changed my technique from gliding to rotation,” Khatua said. “Initially, there was problem in picking up the rotation technique properly. As I began to pick speed, my performance improved, that is the reason,” she added.
Yarraji, who had become the first Indian to win a 100m hurdles gold in the Asian Championships on Thursday, added a 200m silver to her kitty. The 23-year-old clocked a personal best of 23.13 seconds to finish second behind Veronica Shanti Pereira (22.70) of Singapore.
Parul Chaudhary, who had won gold in the 3000m steeplechase on Friday, clocked 15 minutes, 52.35 seconds to finish second behind Yuma Yamamoto (15:51.16) of Japan in the women’s 5000m final. The 28-year-old holds the 5000m national record of 15:10.35. Ankita won the bronze in 16:03.33 as India secured two medals from the event. — PTI
Sable qualifies for Paris Games
Silesia (Poland): Avinash Sable today qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympics after finishing sixth in the men’s 3000m steeplechase event in the Silesia Diamond League meet here. The 28-year-old Sable clocked 8 minutes, 11:63 seconds, which was just outside his national record time of 8:11.20, to breach the Paris Olympics qualifying mark of 8:15.00 by a fair margin. Sable joins four 20km race walkers — Akshadeep Singh, Vikas Singh and Paramjeet Singh Bisht in the men’s event and Priyanka Goswami in the women’s event — and long jumper Murali Sreeshankar in the list of Indians who have qualified for the Paris Olympics so far.