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India win 4x400m mixed relay bronze in world U-20 athletics
Priya Mohan, member of the relay team, also qualified for the 400m final while Indian athletes also reached the finals of men's javelin and shot put.
Indian athletics is on a high since Neeraj Chopra’s sensational javelin gold at the Tokyo Olympics early this month. The joy rubbed off on the country’s junior athletes as well on Wednesday.
India’s 4x400m mixed relay team set a marker on the opening day of the World Junior Athletics Championships in Nairobi, a scorching pace and a big heart helping them win bronze. India’s first medal in the meet will provide a big boost to the rest of the squad.
The quartet of Bharat Sridhar, Priya Mohan, Summy and Kapil clocked 3:20.60, finishing behind winners Nigeria (3:19.70) and Poland (3:19.80). Running the anchor leg, Kapil (46.42secs) put in a great effort to be placed close behind Nigeria’s Bamidele Ajayi and Poland’s Patryk Grzegorzewic. Bamidele forced the pace in the home stretch as Nigeria finished in a championship record time.
India produced their best effort twice in the day. The quartet of Abdul Razak Rasheed, Mohan, Summy and Kapil won Heat 1 in the newly introduced event with a championship record of 3:23.36 in the morning. It lasted only a few minutes as Nigeria won Heat 2 clocking 3:21.66, bettering it in the final. India made one change for the final by including junior Federation Cup 400m champion Barath Sridhar, who had clocked 47.55s recently in Sangrur, Punjab.
It was India's fifth medal at the world junior championships.
“Neeraj Chopra’s gold was a great inspiration for us,” said Sridhar. “There was always this feeling that Indians cannot do well in athletics at world level. Neeraj made us believe that we can be equally good,” said Sridhar, 18, a student of Loyola College, Chennai.
“When we saw Neeraj we wanted to follow in his footsteps and return with a medal. We didn’t get much time to train together because of the pandemic, but we had trust in each other,” said 18-year-old Mohan.
Mohan, in fact, was in the reckoning for Tokyo Olympics selection in mixed relay after upstaging top quarter-milers of the country MR Poovamma, VK Vismaya and Jisna Mathew to win the women’s 400m (53.29s) at the inter-state nationals in Patiala. She was not selected due to the Athletics Federation of India policy of sticking to national campers.
“I was not in the camp so I could not go. But it helped because I was able to focus on the world juniors. I was called for the preparatory camp for the world juniors and my personal coach was also allowed in the camp. That helped prepare for this event,” said the Bengaluru runner.
Both Mohan and Summy, running the second and third legs, sprinted hard in the final to place India in medal position before Kapil provided the final push. “I just had gold in my mind and went all out,” said Kapil.
It was a particularly creditable effort as Priya Mohan and Summy were running their third race of the day. They had run in the 400m heats in between. Mohan qualified for the final after coming third in her heat clocking 53.79secs. Summy was fifth in her heat at 55.43secs.
“In the morning heats I ran with 80 per cent of my capacity. I didn’t have so much time to recover but the idea was to go all out in the relay final,” said Mohan.
It was a creditable performance as they were competing in their first international meet. The break due to the pandemic meant they had to prepare entirely at home.
Sridhar also had to struggle with injury, and competed in Nairobi despite the doctors’ advice. “We were not able to train during Covid (lockdown), so when I started after four months I injured my left ankle. It was a ligament sprain and the doctors asked me to withdraw. But with the help of AFI support staff I was able to recover and compete here.”
In shot put, Amandeep Singh Dhaliwal qualified for the final with a best throw of 17.92m. Kunwer Ajai Raj Singh Rana (71.05m) and Jay Kumar (70.34m) qualified for Friday’s javelin final.
India have had some impressive performances in the world U-20 meet in recent years. Navjeet Kaur Dhillon won bronze in discus in 2014, Neeraj Chopra blitzed the field with gold and junior world record in 2016 while Hima Das won the 400m in 2018. Seema Antil won the discus bronze in 2002.
