Indian Mixed Relay Team Wins Bronze in U-20 World Athletics Championships
The Indian quartet of Bharat S, Priya Mohan, Summy and Kapil (Pic: World Athletics).
The mixed 4x400m relay team won a bronze to clinch India's first medal at the Under-10 World Athletics Championships in Nairobi. It was the country’s fifth medal in the history of the junior worlds.
The Indian quartet of Bharath S, Priya Mohan, Summy and Kapil clocked 3:20.60 seconds to finish third in the final. Nigeria won gold with a timing of 3:19.70s, beating Poland (3:19.80s).
India entered the final on August 18 as the second best team with a championship record timing of 3:23.36s in heat 1. The record was broken by the Nigerian side in heat 2, by finishing their race with a timing of 3:21.66s.
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There was a change in the Indian quartet in the final from the heat race with Bharath S running in place of Abdul Razzaq. Barath had clocked 47.55s recently during the Federation Cup National Junior Championships in Sangrur.
For Priya and Summy, the mixed 4x400m relay final was their third race of the day as both also featured in the individual 400m heats.
"We were inspired by Olympic javelin gold medallist Neeraj Chopra. We wanted to show the world that his win at the Olympics was not a fluke. Our win here will inspire many Indians to take up athletics," said Priya, who has also qualified for the 400m final after finishing third, clocking 53.79s in heat 3. The final will be held on Saturday.
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"It is a wonderful moment for me and my team-mates. It is a dream come true for us to win a medal at an international event and we want to thank World Athletics and our hosts Kenya for making it happen," said Bharath.
Before the bronze this edition, India had won medals through Seema Antil (bronze in discus throw, 2002), Navjeet Kaur Dhillon (bronze in discus throw, 2014), Neeraj Chopra (gold in javelin throw, 2016) and Hima Das (gold in 400m, 2018) in the world U-20 meet.
India are in the medal reckoning in other events as well. In the men's shot put, Amandeep Singh Dhaliwal qualified for the finals with a best throw of 17.92m.
In javelin throw, Kunwer Ajai Singh Rana and Jay Kumar both qualified for the final. Rana threw the spear to 71.05m while Kumar cleared 70.34m. The javelin final will be held on Friday.
(With additions from PTI)
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