Longer relay teams missed gold, India finish 3rd in medals tally at Asian Athletics Championships 2023

To improve the global ranking of the national 4x400m relay teams, Athletics Federation of India (AFI) will send both men's and women’s squads to the Sri Lanka National Athletics Championship. This even takes place towards the end of this month. Chief athletics coach Radhakrishnan Nair gave this information.

In the 4x400m relay on Sunday at the 25th Asian Athletics Championships, the Indian men’s team finished second. The quartet, consisting of Amoj Jacob, Muhammed Ajmal, Mijo Kurian Chacko, and Rajesh Ramesh — in that order — finished second with a time of 3:01.80 seconds.

The women’s team trailed in third spot, clocking 3:33.73 seconds. The members of the women’s relay squad were Rezoana Mallick Heena, Aishwarya Misra, Jyothika Sri Dandi, and Suba Venkatesan.

The chief athletics coach said he was expecting gold medals in both the 4x400m men's and women’s relay today.

“A better planning could have fetched us gold medals in both the relays,” he stated.

The top 16 teams, as per world ranking on July 30, will be eligible to compete at the Budapest World Athletics Championships, starting August 19 in Hungary.

“There are several international competitions in coming days and the ranking will keep on changing,” Nair said. “The men’s 4x400m relay [team] has a good chance to qualify for the World Athletics Championships as the Indian team is currently joint 13th with Germany in the global ranking. But it will be a challenging task for the women’s 4x400m team.”

The Indian team finished third in the continental competition that concluded on Sunday in Bangkok. The national team won six gold, 12 silver, and nine bronze medals to finish third behind Japan (37 medals) and China (22 medals).

India’s 100m hurdles specialist and winner of gold, Jyothi Yarraji, fell short of her goal to add another gold to her kitty on Sunday. She settled for a silver in 200m with a personal best time of 23.13 seconds. Shot putter Abha Khatua equalled the national record and won a silver medal with a throw of 18.06m. Javelin thrower Manu DP, too, had to be satisfied with a silver medal.

Asian Athletics Championships 2023: India's Results

Men

800m: Abdalla Abubaker Haydar (Qatar) 1:45:53 secs, Krishan Kumar (India) 1:45.88 secs, Ebrahim Alzofairi (Kuwait) 1:46.11 secs.

5000m: Hyuga Endo (Japan) 13:34.94 secs, Kazuya Shiojiri (Japan) 13:43.92 secs, Gulveer Singh (India) 13:48.33 secs.

20km race walk: Yutaro Murayama (Japan) 1:24:41 secs, Wang Kaihua (China) 1:25.30, Vikash Singh (India) 1:29:33 secs.

Javelin throw: Roderik Dean Genki (Japan) 83.15m. Manu DP (India) 81.01m, Muhammad Yasir (Pakistan) 79.93m.

4x400m relay: Sri Lanka 3:01.56 secs, India 3:01.80 secs, Qatar 3:04.26 secs

Women

200m: Shanti Pereira Veronica (Singapore) 22.70 secs, Jyothi Yarraji (India) 23.13 secs, Li Yuting (China) 23.26 secs.

800m: Tharushi Dilsara (Sri Lanka) 2:00.66 secs, KM Chanda (India) 2:01.58 secs, Gyanthika Artigala Thushari (Sri Lanka) 2:03.26 secs.

5000m: Yuma Yamamoto (Japan) 15:51.16 secs, Parul Chaudhary (India) 15:52.35 secs, Ankita (India) 16:03.33.

20km race walk: Yang Liujing (China) 1:32:38 secs, Priyanka Goswami (India) 1:34:24 secs, Yukiko Umeno (Japan) 1:36:18 secs, Bhawna Jat (India) 1:38:27 (fifth).

Shot put: Song Jiayuan (China) 18.88m, Abha Khatua (India) 18.06m, Manpreet Kaur (India) 17m.

4x400m relay: Vietnam 3:32.36 secs, Sri Lanka 3:33.27, India 3:33.73 secs.