Neeraj Chopra, men’s 4x400m relay team win gold medals; Indian athletes continue medal run

PTI, Oct 4, 2023, 7:00 PM IST

Credit: @ddsportschannel / X

Hangzhou: Indian javelin throwers — Neeraj Chopra and Kishore Jena produced a commanding performance to walk away with a gold and silver as Indian athletes continued their sensational run, claiming seven medals in the athletics competition at the Asian Games on Wednesday.

In a dramatic day, Olympic gold medallist Neeraj Chopra, whose first effort was not recorded due to a malfunction in electronic distance measurement, defended his title with a season’s best throw of 88.88m in his fourth attempt, while Kishore came up with his personal best of 87.54 — also his fourth attempt — to finish 1-2.

Kishore thus sealed his berth for the Paris Olympics. The qualification mark was 85.50. Neeraj had already qualified for the 2024 Games with a throw of 88.77 at the World Championships in Budapest in August this year.

Moments later, Indian quartet of Anas Muhammed Yahiya, Amoj Jacob, Muhammed Ajmal Variyathodi and Rajesh Ramesh sealed the gold for India in the men’s 4x400m relay with a timing of 3:01.58.

Indian quartet of Vithya Ramraj, Aishwarya Mishra, Prachi and Subha Venkatesan also claimed a silver in women’s 4x400m relay.

The India quartet came up with an effort of 3:27.85 to finish second, while Bahrain dished out a Games record effort of 3:27:65 to claim the top position, while Sri Lanka won the bronze with a timing of 3:30:88.

It was third silver of the day for India in athletics.

Harmilan Bains and Avinash Sable won a silver medal each in women’s 800m and men’s 5000m respectively.

While Harmilan clocked an impressive timing of 2:03.75 to bag the silver, Sable produced an effort of 13:21.09.

Earlier in the day, Indian race walkers Manju Rani and Ram Baboo won the bronze medal in the inaugural 35km mixed team event.

In men’s high jump, Anil Kushare season best jump of 2.26m but it was not enough as he missed a medal, finising at the fourth spot. He needed to clear the 2.29m mark to stay in the fight for a medal.

Jesse Sandesh produced a jump of 2.19m to finish 9th.

India’s Sheena Varkey Nellickal finishes sixth in the Women’s Triple Jump final with a throw of 13.34m.