Bhubaneswar (Odisha) [India], June 16 : India's national record holder in women's 100m hurdles Jyothi Yarraji won a gold medal in the women's 100m race at the National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships 2023 in Bhubaneswar on Friday.
It was an eventful day here on Friday at Bhubaneswar's Kalinga Stadium, the venue of the 62nd National Inter State Senior Athletics Championship. More than a dozen athletes made the cut for the Hangzhou Asian Games scheduled to be held in September in China.
The evening session saw an exciting duel between local favourite Srabani Nanda and Jyothi Yarraji of Andhra Pradesh battling for supremacy in the women's 100m dash. However, Jyothi Yarraji pipped Srabani Nanda to post a personal best time of 11.46 seconds to win gold.
In the longer sprint-400m race-Kerala's Muhammed Anas fought a pitched battle with Sri Lanka's Kalinga Kumarage for the gold. But Sri Lankan surged ahead to post a time of 45.64 secs to win gold.
While the Indian athlete settled for silver with a time of 45.76 secs which was his season-best time. "I'm improving my time with each competition I have competed until June," Muhammed Anas said, adding "I'm hopeful of further improving my time at the July 12 to 16 Asian Athletics Championship in Bangkok.
The women's 400m race however went on expected lines with Haryana's Anjali Devi clocking a season-best time of 51.48 secs to win gold. Anjali Devi got a wild card entry to compete in Bhubaneswar and improved her semifinal performance by 52.03 seconds in the final.
The top four athletes bettered the Asian Games qualification time of 52.96 seconds in the women's 400m event.
Anjali Devi said in post-media interaction: "I am very happy to be back to winning ways as I was sidelined due to recurring leg injury since 2021."
The biggest upset of the day was in the women's 1500m. Punjab's Harmilan Bains, a strong contender for the title, suffered a defeat at the hands of KM Deeksha of Madhya Pradesh. The race was pretty fast and top four dipped below the Asian Games qualification time of
In the men's two-lap race Krishan Kumar of Haryana won gold to better the Asian Games qualification time of
Earlier, in the morning session Haryana's Juned won the men's 35km race walk event, while Manju Rani of Punjab took home the gold in the women's 35km event.
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