New Delhi: Asian Games silver medallist sprinter Dutee Chand and hurdler Dharun Ayyasamy lived up to their top billing, clinching a gold each in their respective events at the ongoing Indian Grand Prix-2 athletics meet here Wednesday. Dutee ran 23.30s to win the 200m women’s race, her second gold medal in the IGP series. The timing will help Dutee improve her IAAF World Ranking in the 200m event.
The timing also ensured that the Odisha sprinter made the qualifying cut-off for the Asian Athletics Championships to be held in Doha. The silver medal in this event went to Anjali Devi of Haryana with a timing of 24.15s while Supriya Maddal of Andhra Pradesh clocked 24.48s to bag the bronze medal.
Dharun clocked a timing of 49.94s to win the men’s 400m hurdles, his second consecutive gold medal in the Indian Grand Prix series 2019 here at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. The 24-year old improved upon his previous timing of 50.07s clocked at IGP-1 held in Patiala on Saturday. Santhosh Kumar took the second place with a timing of 50.77s and the bronze medal went to Ramachandran clocking 50.83s.
MR Poovamma and Vismaya V K, part of the Asian games 4x400m relay winning team, bagged the gold and silver medals respectively in the 400m women’s event. Poovamma clocked 54.12s while Vismaya finished with a timing of 54.76s. The bronze medal went to Prachi of Uttar Pradesh with a timing of 54.74s.
Arokia Rajiv of Tamil Nadu ran 46.49s to win the men’s 400m gold medal in IGP-2 and started the season with a victory. The silver medal went to Jeevan K S of Karnataka by clocking 47.02s while Kunhu Mohammed of Kerala claimed the bronze medal with a time of 47.19s.
Ajay Kumar Saroj got back his lost form and won the gold medal in 1500m by clocking a time of 3:46.10s. The silver medal went to his statemate Rahul of Uttar Pradesh with timing of 3:48.15s while the bronze medal was bagged by Ankit of Haryana (3:49.90s).
In the last event of the day, P U Chitra outran Lily Das of West Bengal to win the gold medal in the 1500m women race with a timing of clocking 4:20.76s. Lily had to be satisfied with the silver with a time of 4: 20.89s while third bronze went to Usha Sati of Delhi (5:08.07s).
