Abha Khatua breaks women’s shot put National Record at Federation Cup 2024

Abha Khatua broke the women’s shot put national record of 18.06m set by Manpreet Kaur at the Federation Cup 2024 on Monday.

Abha Khatua broke the women’s shot put National Record at Federation Cup 2024. | Photo Credit: DEEPAK KR

Abha Khatua broke the women’s shot put national record of 18.06m set by Manpreet Kaur at the Federation Cup 2024 on Monday.

Khatua threw 18.41m in her fifth attempt to win gold and obliterate Manpreet’s record set at the National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships 2022 held in Chennai.

Khatua threw 18.41m to break NR and win gold.  | Photo Credit: Nihit Sachdeva

The 28-year-old from Maharashtra had previously equalled the NR (18.06m) in the Asian Athletics Championships 2023 as she made a huge improvement of nearly a metre -- 93 cm -- from her earlier lifetime best of 17.13m. She sent the 4kg iron ball to a distance of 18.06m in her fourth throw to finish second behind Song Jiayuan (18.88m) of China.

Incidentally, Manpreet, whose national record Khatua broke, had won the bronze medal in the Asiad event with a first-round throw of 17m.

Also going past Manpreet’s meet record of 17.04m set in Patiala in 2017, Khatua missed the Paris Olympic qualification mark by 0.39cm.

UP’s Kiran Baliyan and Srishti Vig from Delhi won the silver and bronze from the event, respectively.