Hima Das (extreme left) with Dutee Chand (right) and Archana and Dhanalakshmi. (AFI) Less than 24 hours after India’s 4x100m women’s relay squad raised hopes of Tokyo Olympics qualification, it received a jolt after ace runner Hima Das suffered a hamstring injury on Saturday morning while competing in the women’s 100m heats.
The Indian foursome of Archana Suseentran, Hima Das, Dhanalakshmi S, and Dutee Chand had set a new meet record of 43.50 seconds on Friday on the opening day of the 60th National Inter-State Athletics Championships at the floodlit Netaji Subhas National Institute of Sports (NSNIS), Patiala.
The qualifying mark for the event is 43.05 seconds and the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) was hopeful of achieving it in the final scheduled on the last and final day on Saturday.
Fastest Four of #IndianAthletics @HimaDas8-Dhanalakshmi-Archana & @DuteeChand
We hope Hima Das recovers ASAP 🤞🏼 after muscle pull during 100m heats this morning at Inter-State meet. pic.twitter.com/T7MBTOtTWS
— Athletics Federation of India (@afiindia) June 26, 2021
Hima completed the third heats with a time of 12.01 second, finishing third behind Amasha De Silva of Sri Lanka (11.64s) and Dhana Lakshmi of Tamil Nadu (11.67s). However, the Assamese athlete still qualified for the final which is scheduled at 7.55 pm on Saturday.
The AFI, the national governing body, even tweeted wishing Hima a speedy recovery.
@HimaDas8 possibly out of rest of the Inter-State events, hamstring injury this morning in Women’s 100m heats
Big task ahead for the 4x100m relay team comprising @DuteeChand
Archana & Dhanalakshmi#RoadToTokyo #Tokyo2020 @kaypeem @AndrewAmsan @jon_selvaraj @Bakwasbaaji pic.twitter.com/EEQF6iEC7q— Divesh Bhal (@diveshbhal) June 26, 2021
Hima was expected to qualify in the 200m (22.88s) after showing roaring form in the Indian Grand Prix-4 held at the same venue last week.
Even though AFI tweeted, a source in the national camp said it’s early to confirm Hima’s injury status. “We can’t tell now … because medical investigations are still going on…,” the source told indianexpress.com on Saturday afternoon.
- The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards.
