National Inter State meet: More than a dozen athletes make cut for Asian Games

Bhubaneswar: It was an eventful day here on Friday at the 62nd National Inter State Senior Athletics Championship as more than a dozen athletes made the cut for the Hangzhou Asian Games, scheduled to be held in September in China.

The evening session saw an exciting duel between local favourite Srabani Nanda and Jyothi Yarraji of Andhra Pradesh battling for supremacy in the women's 100m dash. However, Jyothi Yarraji pipped Srabani Nanda to post a personal best time of 11.46 seconds to win gold.

In the longer sprint---400m race---Kerala's Muhammed Anas fought a pitched battle with Sri Lanka's Kalinga Kumarage for the gold. But Sri Lankan surged ahead to post a time of 45.64 secs to win gold.

While the Indian athlete settled for silver with a time of 45.76 secs which was his season best time.

"I'm improving my time with each competition I have competed until June. I'm hopeful of further improving my time at the July 12 to 16 Asian Athletics Championship in Bangkok," said Muhammed Anas.

The women's 400m race, however, went on expected lines with Haryana's Anjali Devi clocking a season best time of 51.48 secs to win gold. Anjali Devi, got a wild card entry to compete in Bhubaneswar and improved her semifinal performance 52.03 seconds in the final.

Top four athletes bettered the Asian Games qualification time of 52.96 seconds in the women's 400m event.

"I am very happy to be back to winning ways as I was sidelined due to recurring leg injury since 2021," said Anjali Devi in post-media interaction.

The biggest upset of the day was in the women's 1500m. Punjab's Harmilan Bains, a strong contender for the title, suffered a defeat at the hands of KM Deeksha of Madhya Pradesh. The race was pretty fast and top four dipped below the Asian Games qualification time of

In the men's two-lap race, Krishan Kumar of Haryana won gold to better the Asian Games qualification time of

Earlier, in the morning session Haryana's Juned won the men's 35km race walk event, while Manju Rani of Punjab took home the gold in the women's 35km event.