BHUBANESWAR :  India’s fastest woman Dutee Chand stamped her supremacy in the 100m event by winning gold with a timing of 11.49 seconds at the Khelo India University Games on Saturday. It was her first competition this year and she was representing KIIT University. “I was not expecting to go much faster in my first competition after the off-season. I am happy with 11.49, although I would have liked a sub 11.40 to begin with,” Dutee said, having clocked 11.61 in the heats in the morning. She is trying to achieve the Olympic qualifying standard of 11.15 seconds and secure a ticket to Tokyo 2020.

“The coronavirus outbreak and travel regulations make me uncertain for competitions in Europe. I guess I have to seek the Olympic qualifying time in an Indian competition,” Dutee said. She will participate in 200m on the last day of the competition on Sunday. Even for a family of achievers, Narendra Pratap Singh is exceptional. After winning the 10,000m men’s event on the opening day, he broke his own 5000m university record on Saturday.

“The 5k is my favourite event,” said the 23-year-old, a B Com student at Mangalore University. “Recovery was the biggest challenge and I was surprised how good I felt today.” Narendra dominated the field, his timing of 14:18:19 being almost 10 seconds faster than teammate Adish, who finished second. It was also almost a minute quicker than the previous record that he himself had set at the Inter-University Games earlier this year.

Harmilan’s double

Punjabi University’s Harmilan Bains added the 800m crown to the 1500m gold she won a day earlier. She showed sound tactical awareness, first avoiding being bottled, then pulling away from leader Ladkat Yamuna (Savitribai Phule Pune University) at the bell before cruising to victory.