Dutee Chand crashes out in 1st round of IAAF World Championships
Dutee Chand crashed out from the first round of the IAAF World Championships in Athletics on Saturday.
It was an opportunity for Dutee Chand, India’s national record holder in women’s 100m, to showcase her talent at the World Athletics Championships in London.
However, the sprinter failed to impress, bowing out in the first round with a timing of 12.07 seconds. It was her slowest this season. She ran in the fifth of the six heats, finishing sixth.
The Odisha sprinter has been fighting a ‘gender case’ against the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF)’s hyperandrogenism policy at the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS). She got an invitation from the world governing body to compete in the global event on the basis of the 11.30 secs she clocked in May at the Indian Grand Prix at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. The qualifying time in 100m though, was 11.26 secs.
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After the July 6-9 Asian Athletics Championships, where she won bronze in 100m, Dutee Chand had taken a short break. Unexpectedly, she received an IAAF invitation on July 29 and flew to London on July 31.
“The experience of racing against top athletes always helps irrespective of the result,” said her coach N Ramesh from Hyderabad.
Dutee Chand’s next destination will be the World University Games that begin on August 19 in Taiwan. “Since she is a student of Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KITT) University, she is eligible to compete in the university games,” the coach added.
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National record holder in the men’s 400m, Mohammed Anas also crashed out in the first round. He clocked 45.98 secs to finish fourth in his heat. The top three in each of the six heats advance to next round, while the six fastest among the rest also make the cut.
Anas’s season and personal best is 45.32, clocked in May. He was the only Indian athlete to qualify for an individual event. Anas will also compete in the 4x400m relay.
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Anas, gold medallist in the continental meet at Bhubaneswar, had said that he wants to improve the national record (45.32 secs).
Meanwhile, Swapna Barman made a poor start in heptathlon. After the first two events---100m hurdles and high jump, the Asian champion was ranked 27th in a field of 30 competitors. Her overall points were 1826. In the 100m hurdles, she clocked 14.03 secs to earn 959 points and scaled 1.71m in high jump to collect 867 points.
