Dutee Chand dashes to win 200m race

 New Delhi: Asian Games silver medallist sprinter Dutee Chand and hurdler Dharun Ayyasamy lived up to their top billing, clinching a gold each in their respective events at the ongoing Indian Grand Prix-2 athletics meet here on Wednesday.

Dutee ran 23.30s to win the 200m women’s race, her second gold medal in the IGP series. The timing will help Dutee improve her IAAF World Ranking in the 200m event.

The timing also ensured that the Odisha sprinter — who trains in Hyderabad with coach Nagapuri Ramesh under the Sai Gopichand Mytrah project — made the qualifying cut-off for the Asian Athletics Championships to be held in Doha.

The silver medal in this event went to Anjali Devi of Haryana with a timing of 24.15s while Supriya Maddal of Andhra Pradesh clocked 24.48s to bag the bronze medal.

It was the maiden medal for Supriya at the Senior Nationals. Harika was fourth with a time of 24.49.

Dharun clocked a timing of 49.94s to win the men’s 400m hurdles, his second consecutive gold medal in the Indian Grand Prix series 2019 here at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.

The 24-year old improved upon his previous timing of 50.07s clocked at IGP-1 held in Patiala on Saturday.

Santhosh Kumar took the second place with a timing of 50.77s and the bronze medal went to Ramachandran clocking 50.83s.