Asian Athletics Championships: PU Chitra Wins Gold In Women's 1500-Metre Final

PU Chitra has won the gold medal in the 1500-metre women's final at the 2019 Asian Athletics Championships being held at Doha in Qatar. She recorded a timing of 4 minutes and 14.56 seconds to give India its third gold medal of the meet. Chitra's winning strategy in the final was to stay with the race leaders for the duration of the entire race, only to come up with a dash in the final 300 metres of the race, pulling ahead of the others with only a few paces left. Gashaw Tigest of Bahrain, who was leading the race throughout but had to be content with the silver medal eventually, finished with a time of 4:14.81 minutes, 25 milliseconds behind Chitra.

In the men's 1500-metre final a little later, Ajay Kumar Saroj also put up a great show to clinch the silver medal, finishing only behind the gold medallist from Bahrain. His time was 0.006 seconds faster than the bronze medallist from Qatar.

Dutee Chand won the first medal of the day for India on the fourth and final day, managing a season best of 23.24 seconds in the 200-metre sprint final to win a bronze medal. She started off the blocks a little sluggishly but came up with an explosive burst of speed in the last 25 metres to force a photo finish and eventually her way onto the podium.

Dutee's time was just 0.001 seconds quicker than the 4th place sprinter and it was only when the giant screens at the Khalifa Stadium showcased the final standings that Dutee got confirmation that she had won the bronze, then breaking into a smile. She had finished just outside the medal places -- at 4th and 5th -- in the women's 100-metre sprint and the 4*100-metre relay earlier at the meet.

In the women's discus throw final, Karanjeet Kaur and Navjeet Singh Dhillon finished at fourth and fifth spots respectively, failing to add to India's medal tally.

At the end of the third day's action on Tuesday, India had been placed at third spot in the overall medals tally, behind Bahrain and China, with two gold medals, five silver medals and six bronze medals.

India's earlier gold medals had been won by half miler Gomathi Marimuthu and shot putter Tejinderpal Singh Toor on Monday.

More to follow...