Dharun misses late father, dedicates silver to stoic mother

Jakarta: India's Dharun Ayyasamy hopes that his Asian Games silver medal in 400m hurdles will be enough to get him a job so that he can support his stoic mother, who raised him single-handedly after the death of his father.

"My father passed away when I was eight years old. My mother has made a lot of sacrifices for me. I owe her this. She is still earning just Rs 14,000 per month as a teacher," said the 21-year-old from Tirupur in Tamil Nadu.

He now wants to support his mother and is hoping to get a job after his best ever performance. Dharun produced his personal best timing of 48.96 after he pushed hard in the last 100 metres to clinch a silver. The soft-spoken athlete gave an insight to his state of mind during the race. "I just wanted to run my race. I did not give importance to others. My pace in the first half was not very different to the pace in second half. Really happy to better my national record," said Dharun, who had clocked a then Personal Best of 49.45 in the Federation Cup in March earlier this year.