National Open Athletics | Dutee Chand, PU Chitra close season with 200m, 800m titles
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Dutee Chand completed a sprint double by adding the 200m gold to her 100m title while PU Chitra added the women’s 800m crown to her 1500m title at the National Open Athletics Championships in Ranchi on Sunday. Dutee Chand was adjudged the best athlete in the women’s category.
Dutee Chand completed a sprint double in the season-ending 59th National Open Athletics Championships in Ranchi on Sunday. She clocked the fastest time in 200m by an Indian this year with a 23.17 second burst. After setting a 100m national record at the same event on Friday, Chand bagged the half-lapper gold, showing her challenger Archana Suseendran (23.41) a clean pair of heels.
She may not be in the news often but middle distance runner PU Chitra has shown some impressive progress this year as she was another athlete who completed the double, adding the women’s 800m crown to the 1500m title at the Championships. Playing a patient, waiting game, she shadowed Jessy Joseph for a major part of the race and clinched the win comfortably. The 23-year-old is a two-time Asian 1500m gold medallist who has come up with personal bests in both the 800m and the metric mile this season.Â
Chand was adjudged the best female athlete while shot putter Tejinderpal Singh Toor, who bettered his own national record on Saturday with a throw of 20.92m, was named best athlete in the men’s category.
Meanwhile, Services’ Karthik Unnikrishnan, who took the lead with a 16.61m in the third round, won the men’s triple jump gold with a last-round 16.78m concluding an intense competition at the triple jump pit, even in the absence of Asian Games gold medallist Arprinder Singh. Abdulla Aboobacker put up a strong challenge to finish second in an event that witnessed the top six competitors cross the 16m mark
Arshdeep Singh of Punjab hit a personal best 77.37m for the men’s javelin gold but Davinder Singh (personal best 84.57m), who had entered the World Championship final two years ago, finished fourth with a disappointing 72.14m. Chinta Yadav emerged a surprise winner of the women’s 3000m steeplechase in a time of 10 minutes 11.70 seconds, outsprinting her Railways team-mate Parul Chaudhary by 0.07 seconds.
Haryana won both the men’s and women’s 4x400m relays to finish third overall while Railways claimed the overall title with Services bagging the runners up spot.
