Picture Credit: Twitter
Indian athletes put on a stellar performance at the Indian Grand Prix 5 as shot putter Abha Katua breached the Asian Games qualification mark with her performance and Harjit Singh beat the much-fancied Amlan Borgohain to win the 100m event on Sunday, 10th September. The Athletics Federation of India (AFI) has already announced its contingent of athletes for the 2023 Asian Games but there is room for an addition if the athlete breaches the qualification criteria.
In the women’s shot put, Abha Katua clinched the gold with a best throw of 18.02m which was just four centimeter short of her personal best, which is also a joint national record mark that she set in July. Katua successfully breached the Asian Games qualification mark which is set at 18m, while beating Asian Games-bound Kiran Baliyan who finished second with a 17.92m throw, and Mapreet Kaur, who was third with a 16.30m throw.
Harjit Singh successfully beat the national record holder Amlan Borgohain with a timing of 10.55 seconds, while Borgohain recorded 10.57 seconds. However, Singh could not go past the Asian Games qualification mark which was set at 10.19 seconds. In the 400m event, runner Amoj Jacob won the gold with a timing of 45.92 seconds.
The men’s 1500m run saw two athletes - Jinson Johnson and Rahul Harveer, dip below the 3 minutes, 40 seconds mark. While Johnson clocked 3:39.52s, Harveen came home second with a timing of 3:39.83s.
Results:
Women:
100m: Srabani Nanda (Odisha) 11.77 secs, Nithya Gandhe (Telangana) 11.85 secs; Daneshwari AT (Karnataka) 11.94 secs.
400m: R Vithya Ramraj (Tamil Nadu) 52.40 secs, Subha Venkatesan (Tamil Nadu) 52.57 secs, Prachi (UP) 53.01 secs.
Shot put: Abha Khatua (Maharashtra) 18.02m, Kiran Baliyan (UP) 17.92 m, and Manpreet Kaur (Haryana) 16.03m.
Men:
100m: Harjit Singh (Punjab) 10.55 secs, Amlan Borgohain (Assam) 10.57 secs, Siva Kumar B (Tamil Nadu) 10.61 secs.
400m: Amoj Jacob (Delhi) 45.92 seconds, Noah Nirmal Tom (Kerala) 46.55 seconds; Nihal Joel (Karnataka) 46.76 seconds.
1500m: Jinson Johnson (Kerala) 3:39.32 secs, Rahul (Delhi) 3:39.83 secs, Abhinandh Sundaresan (Kerala) 3:44.36 secs.
5000m: Abhishek Pal (UP) 14:24.32, Anuj Mathur (Delhi) 14:26.32 secs, Ravi Kumar (Delhi) 14:37.75 secs.
High jump: Jesse Sandesh (Karnataka) 2.11m, Swadhian Kumar Majhi (Odisha) 2.06m, Nikhil Das (Odisha) 1.95m.
Javelin throw: Kishore Kumar Jena (Odisha) 82.53m, Vikas Yadav (UP) 72.88m, Harish Kumar (Rajasthan) 71.78m.
