Gumi (S korea): It rained gold for India at the Asian Athletics Championships on Thursday as the country’s fastest woman hurdler Jyothi Yarraji, seasoned steeplechase runner Avinash Sable and the 4x400m women’s relay team delivered stupendous performances to finish on top here.
After Jyothi and Sable set the tone, the quartet of Jisna Mathew, Rupal Chaudhary, Kunja Rajitha and Subha Venkatesan clinched the gold medal in the women’s 4x400m relay event after clocking their season-best time (3 minutes, 34.18 seconds) to extend India’s dominance on the third competition day of the continental championship.
Vietnam took silver with 3:34.77, while Sri Lanka settled for the bronze with 3:36.67.
This was the 10th gold overall for India in the event and first since 2013. Overall, India got three gold, two silver and a bronze medal on Thursday taking their overall tally to 14 after proceedings were disrupted by a massive thunderstorm.
India are currently placed second in the overall standings behind China, who have 21 medals including 12 gold.
The men’s 4x400m relay team of Jay Kumar, Dharmveer Choudhary, Manu Thekkinalil Saji and Vishal TK also looked to be on course for a gold medal before settling for silver with a timing of 3:03.67which was their best performance so far. Qatar (3:03.52) won the gold medal, while China (3:03.73) ended the race with bronze in the men’s 4x400m relay.
Earlier, on his way to victory with a season-best performance, Sable became the first Indian man in 36 years to win a gold medal in steeplechase at the Asian Championships.
“I was confident of winning gold as I was best in the field,” said Sable, who has already qualified for the World Championships in September.
“I was confident of winning gold as I was best in the field,” said Sable, who has already qualified for the World Championships in September.
Sable clocked 8:20.92 to claim the top honour, which is also his second Asian medal after a silver in the 2019 edition. It was, however, nowhere close to his national record of 8:09.91 in 2024.