Asian Athletics Championships: Mixed 4x400 relay team retains gold

India defends 4x400m mixed relay title at Asian Athletics Championships with impressive performances in various events.

Reigning champion India successfully defended its title in the 4x400m mixed relay for the country’s second gold at the Asian Athletics Championships on Day Two of the competition in Gumi, South Korea, on Wednesday.

The quartet of T. Santhosh Kumar, Rupal, T. K. Vishal and V. Subha clocked 3:18.12 to fend off stiff challenge from China and Sri Lanka to take the top spot. With two of the four runners – Rupal and Vishal - having already done a lap earlier in the day, it was a challenge to maintain form but the Indians managed to do so, although the time was slower than the World Championships qualifications.

While Santhosh gave India a healthy start and Rupal stayed comfortably ahead, Vishal had to fight hard to keep the Chinese at bay before racing ahead in the final 50m. Subha, the lone survivor from the 2023 edition, had no difficulty in finishing off the anchor leg with a comfortable margin on a rain and thunderstorm affected day that saw the women’s 10,000 stopped midway and postponed for tomorrow and the men’s triple jump suffering in performances following a break after the first three jumps. Praveen Chitravel’s 2nd jump of 16.90m was enough to earn him a silver while Abdulla Aboobacker’s 3rd jump of 16.72 placed him 4th.

Tejaswin Shankar went one better on his 2023 bronze with a silver in the decathlon, finishing with 7618 points, just 16 adrift of China’s Fei Ziang to become the only Indian to win decathlon medals in consecutive editions of the competition. Tejaswin, who was 3rd after nine events, had to win the 1500m to go top but managed a third-place finish in 4:37.99 for 693 points.

Earlier in the day, Rupal clocked 52.68s to take silver in the individual 400m while Vithya Ramraj finished 5th in 53.00s. Vishal, meanwhile, finished fourth, falling agonisingly short by 0.02 seconds from getting on the podium but going under 46 seconds for a Personal Best of 45.57s. This is now the fastest time by an Indian quartermiler this season and comes just a day after he clocked 46.05s.

Also finishing second was Pooja in the 1500m, sprinting past her opponents to go from 5th to 2nd in the final 100 metres to clock 4:10.83. Lili Das finished 4th. Yoonus Shah took bronze for his first international medal in the 1500m in 3:43.03, leading the race for a major part before being elbowed out of the top-two on the home stretch.