Golden girls of India Nirmala, Anu Mariam Jose, Tintu Luka and MR Poovamma brought fresh laurels for India before the close of 20th Asian Athletics Championships at the Balewadi Sports Complex in Pune in India on Sunday.
The Indian women’s 4x400m relay team won the second gold medal of the meet and of course booked their berth for the World Championships which is scheduled to be held in Moscow in August. The splendid four took 3 minutes and 32.26 seconds to overpower the Chinese and Japanese runners in a sensational race.
Notably, it was a rewarding day for the Indian athletes as they hauled one gold, three silver and four bronze medals to mark sixth in the medals table. This is one place better as compared to their seventh-place finish in the previous edition at Kobe in Japan.
Nirmala commenced the Indian challenge and was trailing behind Chiba Asami of Japan in the relay. It was PT Usha’s prodigy Luka, who set the pace by taking the all-crucial lead in the 2nd lap. Further, Jose maintained the lead to hand over the baton to Poovamma, who concluded the race in a marvelous way.
Poovamma commented that it was a team effort and they all contributed to the victory. Luka revealed that she did her best, so did the others and it was a team work.
Coach of the relay team Nagapuri Ramesh opined that this is a good team and they are hoping the selection committee trusts them and keeps the same side for the Moscow World Championships.
To be frank, it was a rich haul by the Indian athletes on the final day. Satinder Singh won the first bronze medal of the day for India in the 800m. Satinder, who was in contention for gold until that moment, rued that it was a good race but the last hurdle wherein he almost fell down denied him a better finish.
Another event was marked by a double medal strike in the 200m women with Asha Roy and Dutee Chand who won silver and bronze respectively, compensating for an entirely dry day on Saturday.
On the other hand, Jithin C Thomas signed off the championship for India winning a bronze in men’s high jump.
At the end, China maintained their supremacy in the region by retaining their No. 1 position in the medals tally. Totally, they won 27 medals comprising of 16 gold, 6 silver and 5 bronze. Bahrain ranked second, followed by Japan.
