Vithya Ramraj of India had a personal best time of 55.42 seconds in her 400m hurdles heat at the Hangzhou Asian Games on Monday, equaling PT Usha’s 39-year-old national record. Vithya won her heat and advanced to the finals thanks to her hard work.
Usha’s time of 55.42 seconds was recorded at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, when she almost missed out on a medal by one tenth of a second. Ravi Sinchal Kaveram Theetharamada, on the other hand, failed to qualify for the final after coming fifth in her heat in 58.62 seconds.
Santhosh Kumar Tamilarasan and Yashas Palaksha qualified for the final of the men’s 400m hurdles after coming second in their respective heats with times of 49.28s and 49.61s.
Meanwhile, India’s high-jump specialist and decathlete Tejaswin Shankar recorded a season-best performance in shot put to finish sixth overall with two events remaining in the men’s decathlon.
The 24-year-old, who won a bronze medal in high jump at the Commonwealth Games last year, finished sixth in shot put with a throw of 13.39m.
He also set a personal best of 11.12m to finish fourth in the 100m event, while leading the long jump standings with an effort of 7.37m.
Tejaswin currently has 2428 points overall in the rankings. He scored 903 points in the long jump, 834 in the 100m dash, and 691 in the shot throw.
Later in the day, he will compete in the high jump and the 400-meter dash.
Sandesh Jesse and Sarvesh Anil Kushare both cleared 2.10m to qualify for the men’s high jump final after finishing ninth out of twelve competitors.
Sandesh and Sarvesh placed sixth and fourth in their respective groups A and B qualifiers.
In the men’s 800m heat, Mohammed Afsal Pulikkalakath finished first with a time of 1:46:79s, while Krishnan Kumar finished second with a time of 1:49:45s. Both made it to the finals.
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