CHENNAI: On the final day, India added 12 medals to finish third in the medal tally at the 25th Asian Athletics Championship in Bangkok. Parul Chaudhary and Jyothi Yarraji won their second medals for women’s 5000 m and women’s 200 m, respectively, to take India’s total medal tally to 27, equalling the medal tally from Bhubaneswar in 2017.
In the 4x400 m relay, the men’s team of Amoj Jacob, Muhammad Ajmal, Mijo Kurian and Ramesh Rajesh clocked 3:01.80 seconds to win the silver medal. The women’s team, on the other hand, with Rezoana, Aishwarya, Jyothika and Subha won a bronze medal in a time of 3:33.73, coming up with the season’s best performance. Radhakrishnan Nair, chief athletics coach, said they were expecting gold medals in both the 4x400m men’s and women’s relay today.
“We could have won a gold medal in relays, it was in our hands. The strategy could have been different and we could have won gold in both men’s and women’s 4x400m relays,” Nair said. He informed about the future plans of the men’s and women’s relay teams as well. “Our men’s 4x400m relay team has qualified (as of now) for Budapest World Championships (in August) at 13th position but we can’t take it for granted. To confirm our qualification, the same relay team will take part in the Sri Lankan Championships, which is a ‘B’ category event, on July 30.
“The women’s 4x400m relay team, which can also qualify if they run below 3:30.00, and mixed 4x400m relay team, which narrowly missed qualification, will also take part in Sri Lanka,” he added. Two of India’s medal on the final day came from 20 kms race walking. Priyanka Goswami bagged the silver in women’s 20km race walk with a time of 1:34:24, while Vikash Singh settles for bronze in men’s 20km race walk, clocking 1:29:32.
Throughout the tournament, Men’s shot putter Tajinderpal Singh Toor, women’s hurdler Yarraji, triple jumper Abdulla Aboobacker, women’s steeplechaser Chaudhary, men’s 1500m runner Ajay Kumar Saroj and the mixed 4x400m relay team of Rajesh Ramesh, Aishwarya Mishra, Amoj Jacob, and Subha Venkatesan accounted for India’s six gold medals at the Asian Athletics Championships 2023 in Bangkok, four more than the previous edition in Doha 2019.
Overall, in the Asian Athletics Championships 2023, Japan topped the medal tally with 37 medals, including 16 golds. Followed by China, who bagged 22 medals, with eight gold.
