Harshit Kumar won the men’s hammer throw gold while Laxita Vinod Sandilea (women’s 800m) and the 4x400m mixed relay team claimed silver medals at the 21st Asian under-20 athletics championships in Dubai on Friday.
Harshit threw a distance of 66.70m while his teammate Prateek (65.97) took the bronze. The Indian team, comprising P. Abiram, Kanista Teena, Navpreet Singh and Sandramol Sabu, clocked 3:24.86 for the mixed relay silver in the 4x400m race. China won the gold.
Laxita bettered her personal best by more than a second, clocking 2:07.10s for the silver. Tanvi Malik, the other Indian in the final, was sixth (2:13.42).
Meanwhile, Karnataka’s Shreeya Rajesh claimed bronze in the women’s 400m hurdles in 59.20s while her teammate Jeyavindhiya Jegadish finished sixth (1:02.06s).
After an eventful Thursday, the championship’s second day when India won four golds, Friday was a bit of a disappointment with Sachin finishing fourth in the men’s 10,000m race walk (45:50.56s) while his teammate Himanshu was disqualified. In the women’s hammer throw, the Indian duo of Nadini and Anushka finished fifth (56.99m) and sixth (55.81m) respectively.
The bright spots came from the men’s 4x100m relay which finished second in its heat (40.43s) and entered the final. Also making the final were Sabita Toppo (14.10s) and Unnathi Aiyappa Bolland (13.72s) in the women’s 100m hurdles.
