Dutee, relay team clinch gold medals

India bagged six medals, including two gold from sprinter Dutee Chand and women’s 4x400M relay team, on the concluding day to finish sixth overall in the Asian Junior Athletics Championship here on Sunday.

Chand outclassed her opponents and won the junior women’s 200M gold with a time of 23.74 secs. Singapore’s Shanti Veronica Pereira (23.99s) and Nigina Sharipova (24.24s) of Uzbekistan were the other medalists.

On Saturday, Dutee clocked a much impressive 23.57 secs while winning her 200 heats that shattered Pandeswari’s 16-year-old national junior record of 23.95 secs as well as Vinitha Tripathi’s Indian junior best time of 23.59 secs registered during the SAF Games.

Dutee won her second gold as she anchored the Indian 4x400 relay team to victory with a timing of 3:40:53. The quartet of V V Jisha, Jessy Joseph, GK Vijaya Kumari and Dutee romped home, ahead of the Thai and the home team.

India also won two silver and two bronze on the concluding day to end the championships with two gold, five silver and five bronze medals.

Rising star Navjeet Kaur Dhillon, bagged a silver medal in discus throw. She hurled the disc to 53.66m for the second place while China’s Xie Yu-Chen won the gold with 55.65m.
Heptathlete Swapna Barman won a silver by garnering 4962 points. Thailand’s Kotchakorn Khamrueangsri won the event with 5290 points.

Sanjivni Jadhav won a bronze medal in women’s 3,000m, clocking 9:35:02. Sharwan Kharb took the bronze in the men’s 5000m with a timing of 14:39:41.

China finished on top in the medals tally with 12 gold, 10 silver and two bronze followed by Japan (11, 5, 5), Qatar (6, 2, 1) and hosts Chinese Taipei (4, 3, 8).