Bengal girls bag gold medals in two international events

Kolkata: Bringing laurels to the nation and scripting history, Bengal’s Rezoana Mallick Heena and Akansha Ghosh won gold in two separate sporting events at the Asian Youth Athletics Championships and the Asian Junior Tour Championship.

Rezoana on Friday clinched gold in the girls’ 400 metre race in a record time at the fifth Asian Youth Athletics Championships at Tashkent in Uzbekistan.

The 16-year-old sprinter clocked 52.98 seconds, surpassing the Asian record of 53.04 seconds.

She had previously clocked 53.22 seconds in the fourth National Open 400 metre Championships in March. The second gold of the day for India was won by Pooja in the girls’ high jump. Earlier, in her maiden 400m race, Rezoana Mallick Heena with an astonishing burst of speed had set a national record. She had set the record in the girls’ under-16 category in the fourth National Open 400m championships at the LNCPE in Thiruvananthapuram.

Akansha Ghosh had paired up with Bhubaneswar’s Aahan for the doubles event in the Jorhat Asian Junior Tour 16 and Under-16 Tennis Championship 2023, which started from April 24, and won the round which took place in Jorhat.

Ghosh had reached the final round in singles as well but lost the match to Aahan.

Thus, she won gold and silver medals in the championship. She is the first Bengali to reach the championship’s final.

Meanwhile, Odisha’s Bapi Hansda won the silver medal in the 400m hurdles at the ongoing 5th Youth Asian Athletics Championships. He clocked 51.38 seconds, his personal best, to finish ahead of Sri Lanka’s Kuda Liyanage Ayomal, who timed 51.40, to bag bronze while Qatar’s Mahamat Abakar Abdrahman won the gold. The winner had clocked 50.91 secs.