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Asian Athletics C’ships: 4 medals by 3 U.P. athletes on final day help India finish third
Out of the 27 medals that India won at the 5-day meet, six were gold, 12 silver and nine bronze. Also, India bettered its 2019 finish when it won 16 medals
This Sunday proved excellent for Uttar Pradesh in sports as four athletes from the state won three silver and a bronze medal in four separate events at the Asian Athletics Championships in Bangkok, Thailand.
Overall, India finished third in the tally at the five-day event. Out of the 27 medals that India won, six were gold, 12 silver and nine bronze. Also, India bettered its 2019 finish when it won 16 medals.
Even before gold medalist steeplechaser from Meerut Parul Chaudhary could win her second medal -- silver in the 5000-metre track event on Sunday that she completed in 15 minutes and 52.35 seconds -- her city mate and Olympian Priyanka Goswami bagged silver in the 20-km race walk in a time of 1:34:24.
This wasn’t all as Aligarh’s Gulveer Singh from the army bagged his first international medal, a bronze in the men’s 5000-metre final that was dominated by Japanese duo Hyunga Endo (gold) and Kazuya Shiojiri (silver). Singh clocked 13:48:33. The day’s final silver medal from an Uttar Pradesh athlete came in women’s 800-metre in which Mirzapur’s KM Chanda finished second as she crossed the finish line of the two-lap race in 2 minutes and 1.58 seconds, behind MK Dissanayaka (2 minutes and 0.66 seconds) of Sri Lanka.
Earlier, Goswami finished second, behind Yang Liujing (1:32:37) of China, in 20-km race walk. Yukiko Umeno of Japan took the bronze. Twenty-seven-year-old Priyanka’s time, though, was well outside her personal best of 1:28:45 seconds, which she had clocked in 2021.
Priyanka, who won a silver in the 10,000-metre race walk in the 2022 Commonwealth Games, has already qualified for the World Championships (August 17-29) in Budapest, Hungary, and the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“It’s a great day for India as well as for my family as we all were praying for Priyanka’s podium finish at Bangkok,” her father Madanpal said from Meerut.
He also said he was hopeful of Priyanka winning medals at this year’s World Championships as well as at the Asian Games. “She has been doing well at international levels, and I am sure that she will again be on the podium soon,” said Madanpal, a former employee of the Uttar Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation.
An athletics coach in Meerut, Gaurav Tyagi was elated by the success of local athletes at the Championships. “It’s a great day for Meerut as two of our athletes have made us proud, winning medals at Bangkok. I was sure of their win as they are outstanding talents,” said Tyagi.
