07 June,2023 07:11 PM IST | Yecheon (South Korea) | mid-day online correspondent
Representational Image (Pic: Istock)
The women's 4x400m relay team and 1500m runner Laxita Vinod Sandila won a gold medal each to give India a third-place finish at the Asian U-20 Athletics Championships on Wednesday.
Sandila clocked her personal best time of 4:24.23 seconds to clinch gold on the concluding day of competitions. She bettered her earlier personal best of 4:26.48s by more than two seconds to bag India's fifth gold of the championship.
Later in the day, the dependable quarter-miler Rezoana Mallick Heena anchored the longer relay (4x400m) team to gold, clocking 3:40.49s. Kazakhstan won silver with a time of 3:46.19 seconds, while Korea (3:47.46s) took the bronze.
The men's 4x400m relay team settled for a silver with a time of 3:08.78 seconds.
Mehdi Hasan added a bronze in the men's 1500m race with a time of 3:56.01s while Shivaji Parashu Madappagoudra bagged a silver in the men's 5000m race by clocking 14:49.05s as India's tally swelled to 19 medals.
Also Read: Sunil Kumar bags gold at Asian U-20 Athletics Championships
India ended third with 6 gold, 7 silver and 6 bronze, behind Japan (14 gold, 4 silver, 5 bronze) and China (11 gold, 5 silver, 3 bronze).
On the opening day on Sunday, fast-rising Rezoana Mallick Heena and Bharatpreet Singh clinched a gold medal each in women's 400m and men's discus throw respectively.
Shot putter Siddharth Choudhary added another gold on Monday with a personal best throw of 19.52m while decathlete Sunil Kumar won a yellow metal on Tuesday.
A 45-member Indian team, which had 19 women, competed in the June 4 to 7 event.
Meanwhile, competing with a pole vault borrowed from the organisers, Sunil Kumar won the decathlon gold medal with his personal best tally of 7003 points on Tuesday. Sunil, 18, won 100m hurdles, discus throw and javelin throw to make up for the below par show in the other events and secure the gold medal in the gruelling discipline competed over two days.
(With PTI inputs)
