Indian sprinter Hima Das cruise to 400m finals in IAAF World Under-20 Athletics Championships
Tampere, July 12: The 18-year-old Indian sprinter Hima Das on Wednesday cruised to the finals of the IAAF World Under-20 Athletics Championships which is being held in Tampere, Southern Finland.
Notably, Hima Das clocked 52.10 seconds to win the semifinals heat number one and led the overall time charts. She had also led the time charts in the first round heats on Tuesday with a timing of 52.25 seconds. While Andrea Miklos of Romania was the second in overall time charts in 52.58.
The first two finishers in each of the four heats and the next two fastest qualify for the final which will be run on Thursday. Unfortunately, an another Indian in the fray, Jisna Mathew, failed to make the finals after finishing fifth in semifinals heat number 2 with a time of 53.86 and 13th overall.
Shot putter Ashish Jakhar also made it to the final round after finishing eighth overall in the qualification round with a throw of 70.52m. On the other side, in men’s 400m, Gaurav also crashed out after finishing fifth in his heat and 42nd overall with a time of 48.61 seconds.
BACKGROUND:
Hima Das clocked an Indian U-20 record of 51.32 seconds to finish sixth in the Commonwealth Games 400m final in Gold Coast in April. Since then, she has gone onto improving her timings. She lowered the Indian U-20 record in 400m to 51.13 seconds while winning gold in the recent National Inter-State Championships in Guwahati. If Hima wins Gold, then she will become the first Indian athlete to do so in a track event in a U-20 World Championships.