Local favourite and brand ambassador of the 58th National Inter State Senior Athletics Championships Hima Das on Wednesday lived to her billing to clinch the gold in women's 200m race in a meet record-equalling time of 23.10 seconds and book a ticket for the upcoming Asian Games.
Running at lane number 7, the 18-year-old led the final race from start to the end, leaving behind Odisha's Dutee Chand (23.41) by a big gap at the finish line to clock a personal best time. Another Odisha sprinter Srabani Nanda took the bronze in 23.87.
Dutee also booked an Asian Games berth after clocking 23.46 in one of the heats on Tuesday. The qualifying time for Asiad in this event is 23.50.
In men's 200m, Muhammed Anas of Kerala took the gold in 20.98 seconds but missed the qualifying mark of 20.87. V.K. Elakkiya Dasan of Tamil Nadu secured the silver in 21.31 while Parveen Kumar (21.43) got the bronze.
Anas, who began running 200m recently, had clocked 20.74 in Poland earlier this month.
Meanwhile, in women's 800m race, Komal Chodhary of Haryana took the gold clocking 2 minutes and 06.68 seconds, well outside the qualifying mark of 2:03.00. Shipra Sarkar of Bengal took the silver in 2:07.02 while Maharashtra's Archana Adhav clocked 2:07.22 to take bronze.
Eight athletes have so far breached the Asian Games qualifying mark set by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI). India has been allotted 102 (52 men and 50 women) spots by the organisers of the Asian Games to be hosted at Jakarta in August.
--IANS
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