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Watch: Parul Chaudhary conquers 5000m gold, second medal at 2023 Asian Games
Parul Chaudhary has won gold in the women's 5000m event just a day after she took silver in women's 3000m steeplechase
Parul Chaudhary has become the third Indian track and field athlete to win gold at the 2023 Asian Games, winning the women's 5000m in a rather dramatic fashion. Parul hanged back for much of the race before breaking away from the rest of the pack with Japan's Ririka Hironaka ahead of her.
Parul was trailing Hironaka until the final few metres in which she burst forward and took the gold medal. The 28-year-old has added to the silver medal she won in the 3000m women's steeplechase. Parul on Tuesday registered a time of 15:14.75. Hironaka registered a time of 15:15.34 while Kazakhstan's Caroline Kipkirui won bronze with a time of 15:23.12 which is her season's best. Ankita, the other Indian in the fray, finished fifth with a time of 15:33.03, which is her personal best.
The gold medal caps off a sensational year for Parul in which she had won two medals at the Asian Athletics Championships. She won gold in the 3000m steeplechase event in Bangkok and a silver in the 5000m event. At the Asian Games, she won medals in the same two events, only with the medals swapped.
On Monday, Parul was pretty much the only one who could keep up with Bahrain's Winfred Yavi for much of the women's 3000m steeplechase final before the latter pulled away. Parul had thus established a good lead from the rest of the chasing back and comfortably took silver, unlike what was the case with her 5000m gold on Tuesday. Parul registered a time of 9:27.63, which was a new personal best for her in 3000m steeplechase.
Parul's gold is India's third from track and field at the 2023 Asian Games, adding to the medals won by shotputter Tajinderpal Singh Toor and men's 3000m steeplechase winner Avinash Sable. Toor defended his Asian Games gold while Sable smashed the Games record to cruise to a comfortable win. Javelin thrower Annu Rani took that tally to four later on Tuesday.
A productive day for India
Annu's gold squared off a highly productive day for India in track and field. Indians medalled in six of the eight finals that they qualified for. Silvers were won by Tejaswin Shankar in men's deacthlon and Mohammed Afsal in men's 800m. Meanwhile Praveen Chithravel won bronze in men's triple jump while Abdulla Aboobacker finished millimeters behind him at fourth. Vithya Ramraj also won bronze in women's 400m hurdles. Like Parul, this is her second medal in Hangzhou this year as she was also part of the Indian mixed relay team that won silver on Monday.
Tejaswin's silver was India's first men's decathlon medal since 1974. Vijay Singh Chauhan was the last Indian to win a decathlon medal in Asian Games in 1974, while the national record belonged to Bharatinder Singh (7,658 points).
In men's 400m hurdles, Yashas Palaksha (49.39) and Santhosh Kumar (49.41) finished fifth and sixth respectively in the final. In women's high jump final, Pooja and Rubina Yadav ended their campaign at the sixth and ninth positions respectively.
