Athletics
U20 World Athletics C'ships: Aarti wins first medal, sets National Record
Aarti clinched the bronze medal in the women's 10000m race walk to open the medal tally for India at the U20 World Athletics Championships.
India's medal-les campaign at the ongoing U20 World Athletics Championships breathed some air as Aarti clinched her first medal with a bronze in the women's 10000m race walk event on Friday.
She also set the new U20 National Record with her timing of 44 minutes 39.39 seconds.
Aarti shelved off three minutes from her previous personal best timing of 47:21.04 clocked in March while winning gold in the National Federation Cup U20 Championships in Lucknow.
Chinese race walkers Zhuoma Baima (43:26.60) and Meiling Chen (44:30.67) took the gold and silver respectively.
Another national record was broken when the Indian quartet of Rihan Chaudhary, Ankul, Abiram Pramod, and Jay Kumar shattered the national U20 record, clocking 3 minutes 08.10 seconds, to finish second in heat 3 and qualify for the final round.
Jay Kumar impressed particularly with a brilliant anchor leg run to propel India to the final.
In the women's 4x400m relay heats, the Indian quartet of Rujula Amol Bhonsle, Neole Anna Cornelio, Abinaya Rajarajan, and Sudheeksha Vadluri also rewrote the national U20 record, clocking 45.31 seconds but failed to make it to the final by a whisker after finishing ninth overall.
It has been a dismal campaign for India till now but the last couple of days have sprung a few positives with 17-year-old Pooja breaking the women's high jump U20 National record with a jump of 1.83m and Sharuk Khan breaking the 3000m Steeplechase U20 national record.
India won a total of three medals at the previous edition of the U20 World Championships and with three more finals to go, the expectation will be to match the previous medal tally.
