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The Indian track and field squad concluded a fruitful campaign for the Asian Athletics Championships with 27 medals and finished 3rd overall in the continental event. India, who finished second behind Japan (37 medals) and China (22 medals), took home eight silvers and five bronzes on the final day.
In the 4×400-meter relay, the Indian men’s team – Amog Jacob, Mohamed Ajmal, Migo Kurian Chacko and Rajesh Ramesh – finished second with a time of 3:01.80 seconds, while the women’s team finished a disappointing third, clocking in at 3:33.73 seconds. The members of the women’s relay squad are Rizwana Mallik Hina, Aishwarya Misra, Jyothika Sri Dandi and Suba Venkatesan.
Head athletics coach Radhakrishnan Nair, who had been expecting gold medals in both relay events on Sunday, was not happy with the performance. “Better planning could have brought us gold medals in both stages. I’m not happy with the performance, especially the women. We added Heena but she didn’t do well. We still have time to build a better team before the Asian Games,” Nair said after the event.
The chief coach said that the men’s 4x400m relay has a good chance of qualifying for the Budapest World Championships in Athletics, which begins on August 19 in Hungary. The top 16 teams according to the world rankings on July 30 will be eligible to compete in Budapest.
To further improve the world rankings, 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 were unable to add gold medals to their profiles.
Jyothi Silver Medal
India’s 100m hurdles expert and gold medalist, Jyothi Yarraji fell short of her goal of adding another gold to her catapult of the day. She settled for a silver in the 200 meters with a personal best time of 23.13 seconds in an event in which she is not a major. Jyothi, even on the local circuit, competes in the 200m to work up her pace and keep herself busy during the meets. After her golden hurdles at last month’s speedway meet, she returned in similar fashion to beat sprint specialist Srapani Nanda in the 200m for the gold.
“I wanted to go under 23 seconds today but I’m still happy because I can do my best on a personal level. I have to take it step by step. I will now be targeting gold in the Asian Games.”
Abha Khatoh equaled the national record and won the silver medal with a throw of 18.06m. She became the second woman from the country to cross the 18-meter barrier. Khatwa credits her style change to progression. “I was using the sliding method earlier but now I’ve switched to the spinning method and it’s helped me a lot,” she explained. Manpreet Kaur won the bronze with a throw of 17m.
Distance runner Parul Choudhury finished second in the women’s 5,000 metres. Earlier, she won the gold medal in the women’s 3000m hurdles. Javelin thrower Manu DP also had to be content with a silver.
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