Guwahati: Ace sprinter Hima Das picked a gold medal in the women’s 200 meters race but once again fell short of the Asian Games qualification mark after she clocked 23.77 seconds at the Athletics Federation of India’s (AFI) flagship Indian Grand Prix-3 at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru on Monday.
Hima, who had to endure a disqualification for a false start in the Indian Grand Prix 2 in Thiruvananthapuram, managed a minute 0.2-second improvement from the 23.79s that she clocked at the IGP 1 in the Kerala capital, last month.
However, despite that the Dhing Express, as she is popularly addressed, has to make vast improvements in her timing to make it to the Asian Games. Hima’s latest timing of 23.77s is 0.34s short of the qualification standard for the women’s 200m sprint event set by the AFI.
Similarly, another Assamese sprinter, Amlan Borgohain, claimed both the gold medals on offer in the men’s 100m and 200m races but failed to come anywhere near the magic marks needed to board the flight to Hangzhou, set to host the continental event later this year.
Making his first appearance in a domestic competition this year, Amlan registered a time of 10.50s for the 100m gold and returned to the track less than an hour later to take the 200m in 21.20 seconds. To put things in context, Amlan, the national record holder, fell short of the Asian Games qualification stand by a good 0.31s in 100m, and 0.59s in the men’s 200m event.
Having returned from a break following the Asian Indoor Championships in February, the IGP-3 was Amlan’s first outing in an outdoor competition.
Kokrajhar’s Tunlai Narzary clinched the yellow metal in the women’s Shot Put event with an effort of 14.18m. Tamil Nadu’s B Vaishnavi was a distant second with a throw of 11.50m. A gold medallist at the 2019 World Police & Fire Games in China, Tunlai fell 2.12m short of the Asian Games mark.
Meanwhile, Commonwealth Games silver medallist long jumper M Sreeshankar, whose last competition was the National Games in October 2022, produced three efforts that were good for gold on Monday. The World No. 6 won with a leap of 7.94m on his last attempt. He was satisfied with his efforts since he is coming back from a grade 2 hamstring injury that kept him on the sidelines for three months.
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Like Amlan, Jyothi Yarraji also took a break from competing after the Asian Indoor Championships and marked her return in the same venue where she rewrote the National Record at 12.82 seconds. She cruised to a win, clocking an easy 13.44 seconds, suggesting that India’s only sub-13 second 100m hurdler was focusing on getting the technique right at the start of a big season.
Maharashtra’s Aishwarya Kailash Mishra became the third Indian woman 400m sprinter to clock a sub-54 mark twice this year. She won the event in 53.63 seconds, leaving Kiran Pahal of Haryana in her wake.
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