Athletics
Kiran Pahal, Rajesh Ramesh clock personal best timing at Poland Athletics meet
Jyothika Sri in women's 400m and Annu Rani in women's javelin throw also clinched gold medals with satisfactory results.
Kiran Pahal in women's 200m and Rajesh Ramesh in men's 400m clocked personal best timings. (Photo Credits: TheBridge/X)
Indian track athletes had an outstanding outing at the Summer Athletics Competition in Warsaw, Poland, on Saturday.
Kiran Pahal and Rajesh Ramesh clocked their personal best timing in women's 200m and men's 400m finals respectively.
Outstanding home leg from Rajesh
Rajesh is always a showman for the Indian 4x400 relay team. However, he was sidelined from the team due to an injury, he sustained at the World Relays Championships earlier this year.
But now, he has announced his comeback to the circuit in style and clocked a personal best timing of 45.54s in the 400m final race.
In the final, he had an amazing home leg where he overtook a Polish runner in the final few meters to clinch the gold medal.
His timing is also the best among the Indians this year. Alongside him, the other Indian runners also had put up an improved performance as four Indian runners clocked sub-46 timings.
Muhammed Ajmal (45.69, SB), Muhammed Yahiya (45.93) and Amoj Jacob (46.0s, SB) finished in third, fourth and fifth position respectively. This is a good sign for them before the Paris Olympics.
In the women's 400m event, India's Jyothika Sri Dandi finished in the top position with a good timing of 52.32s.
On the other hand, Vithya Ramraj (53.18s) and Subha Venkatesan (53.19s) finished in third and fourth position respectively.
Kiran topples Jyothi Yarraji
In one of the exciting events at the meet, Kiran Pahal achieved a new personal best (23.33s) and finished ahead of India no.1 Jyothi Yarraji (23.53s) in women's 200m.
This was a season opener for Kiran in 200m who is traditionally a quarter-miler and India's only athlete to win a quota in 400m individual event for the Paris Olympics.
India's only hurdler at Paris, Jyothi Yarraji, also contested in the women's 100m hurdles event. She clocked a decent timing of 13.29s to top the heats and qualified for the final.
However, she decided to skip the final and tried her hands in women's 200m where she clocked a season-best timing to finish second.
Meanwhile, as the only field athlete at this meet, Annu Rani managed to clinch the top position with a few good throws of 58+ meters.
She finished the competition on top with the best throw of 58.70m. But, she still might need to throw a couple of meters more at the Paris Olympics to reach the final 12.
