Dutee Chand broke the women’s national record twice in a day as she stunningly brought it down to 11.24s and qualified for the Rio Olympics at the Kosanov memorial athletics meet in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on Saturday.
Dutee had run 11.30 secs in heats in the morning, which was better than the Olympics entry standard of 11.32, and in the evening, without any pressure, she was a lot faster in the final where she finished second. Kazakhstan’s Viktoriya Zyabkina, a semifinalist at the Beijing World’s last year, won the event in a personal best 11.15s.
Dutee now holds the four fastest times by an Indian women, all clocked this year, in the event.
In other events, the Indian men’s 4x100m relay team took the top place in 39.86s while the women’s relay team was second in 44.10s. And in women’s triple jump, Kerala’s N. V. Sheena produced her personal best while finishing fifth with 13.59m.
Meanwhile, there was disappointment at the Polish National Championship in Bydgoszcz where K. T. Irfan, who had finished 10th in the London Olympics, and women’s national record holder Khushbir Kaur failing to finish the event.
Sandeep Kumar finished sixth in 1:29.14s but surprisingly, three Indian men — Manish Singh, Devender Singh, K. Ganapathi — and Sapna in the women’s section did not start.
“The team’s Russian coach Alexander Artsybashev had a change of plan,” said one source.
SIDDHANTH’s WAIT CONTINUES
Things were not very bright for Siddhanth Thingalaya, the men’s 110m hurdles national record holder at Aarhus in Denmark, though he won the event.
Siddhanth, who has a personal best of 13.54s, clocked 13.69s at the Aarhus Nordic Challenge and once again missed the Rio entry standard of 13.47s.
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