Kiran Pahal qualifies for Paris Olympic Games in women’s 400m; Gulveer Singh improves meet record « Athletics Federation of India

Panchkula

Haryana’s Kiran Pahal was cynosure of all eyes as she blazed the track at Panchkula’s Tau Devilal Stadium on Thursday to achieve Paris Olympic Games qualification in the women’s individual 400m event.

While Asian Games medalist Gulveer Singh of Uttar Pradesh clocks 13:34.67 seconds in the men’s 5,000m to improves his meet record of 13:43.23 set last year in Bhubaneswar.

Kiran ran a blistering pace to clock 50.92 seconds to better the Paris Olympic Games qualification time of 50.95 on the opening day of the 63rd National Inter State Senior Athletics Championships.

With Thursday’s performance Kiran has emerged as the second fastest Indian female 400m runner of all time. Hima Das holds the national record of 50.79 seconds clocked in 2018.

Kiran is the first Indian female quarter miler to have qualified for the Olympic Games after a gap of eight years since Nirmal Sheoran (Haryana) qualified for the 2016 Olympic Games.

Kiran was surprised to have clocked an astonishing time in the semis on Thursday. The final scheduled for Friday will be an exciting event on cards as she plans to race faster than her semifinal time of 50.92 seconds. “I will do better in the medal round,” Kiran said in a post-race interaction. She had clocked 52.33 seconds in her preliminary round.

Kiran’s flight to Paris has been all struggle and a lot of hard work. “That’s all past. I’m happy to achieve a good result today in Panchkula,” Kiran explained.

Subha V of Tamil Nadu topped the first semis with a time of 53.08 seconds while Deepanshi of Haryana won the third semis with a time of 52.12 seconds.

The men’s 400m final will also be a mouth-watering contest as all top 400m runners advanced to the medal round. Muhammed Anas of Kerala was the fastest in the semis with a time of 45.76 seconds.

Results

Men: 5000m: Gulveer Singh (Uttar Pradesh) 13:34.67 seconds (MR), Sunil Dawar (Madhya Pradesh) 14:02.75 seconds, Gagan Singh (Haryana) 14:05.66 seconds

Women

5,000m: Ankita (Uttarakhand) 16:10.37, Seema (Himachal Pradesh) 16:12.27, Sanjivani Jadhav (Maharashtra) 16.32.35

Hammer throw: Manju Bala (Rajasthan) 63.66m, Harshita Sherawat (Delhi) 62.20m, Tanya Chaudhary (Uttar Pradesh) 61.57m.