Tamil Nadu's Dhanalakshmi who stunned Dutee Chand in the 100m final on Tuesday, emerged as the sprinter to beat in the women’s 200m, clocking a Meet Record time of 23.26 seconds in the women’s 200m semifinals in the 24th National Federation Cup Senior Athletics Championships at the Netaji Subhas National Institute of Sports.
Her victory over Hima Das (Assam) who clocked 24.39 seconds in the semifinal heats lifted her to the top 10 of Indian all-time list. Archana Suseendran (Tamil Nadu) won her semifinal heats in 24.07 seconds to raise expectations of a good final. It must be stated that both Hima Das (23.10) and Archana Suseendran (23.18) have faster times than the one blazed by Dhanalakshmi on Thursday.
Her time broke PT Usha’s long-standing meet record of 23.30 seconds set in Chennai in 1998. Having run 24.05 seconds when finishing third in the Federation Cup here two years ago, she recorded a 23.47 in the Tamil Nadu State Championships in Sivakasi on January 24, thus making it the second time she was dipping in under 23.50 seconds.
