Athletics
Having broken Jyothi Yarraji's KIUG record, Pragyan Sahu charges towards Asian Games qualification
Pragyan Prasanti Sahu won gold in the 100m hurdles event at the Khelo India University Games last week. She also breached the qualifying time for the Inter-State Athletics Championships, which will be an Asian Games qualifier.
Pragyan Sahu with her 100m hurdles gold medal at the Khelo India University Games
Young hurdler Pragyan Prasanti Sahu came up with a new meet record in the women's 100m hurdles event at the Khelo India University Games last week, beating the record set by her senior Jyothi Yarraji.
Even as Jyothi and Amlan Borgohain compete in foreign meets, a bunch of other athletes from the Reliance Foundation have made their mark recently - the foremost among them being Pragyan, Jyothi's understudy at the Odisha-based academy.
Pragyan Prasanti Sahu made an outstanding comeback with a gold in the 100m hurdles event at the KIUG with a timing of 13.63 seconds after her impressive performance in the recently concluded Senior Federation Cup in Ranchi. The earlier record had been 13.77s by Jyothi.
Pragyan also breached the qualifying time for the Inter-State Athletics Championships in Bhubaneshwar, an Asian Games qualifier which will be held later this month.
Speaking after her KIUG gold, Pragyan said, “After my performance in the Senior Federation Cup, I needed this victory because I narrowly missed out on a medal there and finished fourth. It was important for me to get off to a fast start and I am satisfied that I managed to do that. This gold will motivate me to maintain a high level of performance and train for the next competition. Our coach believes in me and I want to ensure I keep performing consistently.”
Pragyan was among seven Reliance Foundation athletes who won medals at the KIUG 2023.
Martin Owens, Head Coach, Odisha Reliance Foundation Athletics High Performance Center, said, “The athletes have performed very well in the 3rd Khelo India University Games 2023. They have pushed themselves hard during the training sessions, which resulted in them achieving success. We had seven athletes participating in the competition and all of them returned with a fantastic podium finish.”
The third edition of the Khelo India University Games witnessed around 4,000 athletes, all in the under-27 category, from 205 top universities from across the country competing across 21 different sports.
