Asian Athletics Championships: India clinches Six medals with three Gold

In athletics, India’s Jyothi Yarraji and Avinash Sable delivered standout performances to win gold in their respective events at the 26th Asian Athletics Championships at GUMI, South Korea yesterday. Sable clinched the men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase title with a season-best time of 8 minutes, 20.92 seconds. 

With the victory, the two-time Olympian and reigning Asian Games champion became the first Indian man in 36 years to win steeplechase gold at the Asian Championships. He joins Harbans Singh (1975) and Dina Ram (1989) as the only Indian men to achieve the feat. Sable, who won silver in the 2019 edition in Doha, is also the national record holder in the event. Later, Yarraji claimed her second



consecutive gold medal in the women’s 100-meter hurdles, clocking 12.96 seconds to set a new championship record. Yarraji, India’s fastest woman hurdler, surged late in the race to secure the victory and rewrite history.

After Jyothi and Sable set the tone, the quartet of Jisna Mathew, Rupal Chaudhary, Kunja Rajitha and Subha Venkatesan clinched the gold medal in the women’s 4×400-meter relay with a season-best time of 3:34.18, extending India’s dominance on the third day of the continental championship. It was India’s 10th overall gold in the event . With this, India won three gold, two silver and one bronze medal today, bringing its overall tally to 14.