Asian Athletics Championships 2019: Gold for Chitra, Dutee Chand gets bronze

Team Udayavani, Apr 25, 2019, 7:59 AM IST

Doha: P. U. Chitra defended her 1500m title to give India its third gold medal while Ajay Kumar Saroj and Dutee Chand won a silver and a bronze in men’s 1500m and women’s 200m respectively on the fourth and final day of the Asian Athletics Championships here on Wednesday.

Chitra overtook Bahraini runner Tigest Gashaw just a few metres before the finishing line to win the race in 4 minute 14.56 seconds at the Khalifa Stadium.

This was India’s third gold of the championships after Gomathi Marimuthu (women’s 800m) and Tejinder Pal Singh Toor (men’s shot put) won a yellow metal each on the second day on Monday.

Gashaw clocked 4:14.81 for the silver while another Bahraini Mutile Winfred Yavi took the bronze in 4:16.18.

Chitra had won gold in the 2017 edition in Bhubaneswar in 4:17.92.

Her male counterpart, Saroj clocked a season best time of 3 minute 43.18 seconds to clinch a silver behind Bahrain’s Abraham Kipchirchir Rotich who clocked 3:42.85.

Dutee clocked 23.24 seconds to win the bronze in the women’s 200m.

After falling behind in the first 100m, she covered a lot of ground in the final 100m stretch and got past three competitors at the finish line. Salwa Naser of Bahrain expectedly took the gold in 22.74 followed by Olga Safronova of Kazakhstan in 22.87.

In the women’s discus throw, Navjeet Kaur (57.47m) and Kamalpreet Kaur (55.59m) came up with disappointing shows to finish fourth and fifth respectively.

Earlier on Tuesday, Asian Games gold medallist heptathlete Swapna Barman and the 4x400m mixed relay team won a silver each.

The 22-year-old Barman logged 5993 aggregate points from the seven events to finish second behind Ekaterina Vornina (6198 points) of Uzbekistan, while Purnima Hembram, the other Indian in the fray, ended fifth with 5528 points.

In the 4x4000m mixed relay team which was introduced for the first time in this championship, the Indian quartet of Mohammed Anas, M. R. Poovamma, V. K. Vismaya and Arokia Rajiv clocked 3:16.47 to finish second, behind Bahrain.