Hangzhou Asian Games | Shot putter Kiran Baliyan wins India’s first athletics medal

Indian woman shot putter Baliyan wins bronze at Asian Games, the first in 72 years. Manpreet Kaur (5th) and Himanshi Malik (5th) also competed. Tanya Chaudhary and Rachna Kumari (7th and 9th) in hammer throw. Muhammed Ajmal and Muhammed Anas Yahiya (2nd and 3rd) in 400m race. Baliyan first Indian woman to win Asian Games medal in shot put since 1951.

Kiran Baliyan became the first Indian woman to win an Asian Games medal in shot put event in 72 years as she picked up a bronze on the opening day of competitions in Hangzhou on September 29.

The 24-year-old Baliyan hurled the iron ball to a distance of 17.36m in her third attempt for her best effort of the day to open India's medal account.

Baliyan, thus, became only the second Indian to win a medal in women's shot put in Asian Games after Barbara Webster, an Anglo-Indian from then Bombay, won a bronze in the inaugural edition in New Delhi in 1951.

Baliyan has a season's as well as personal best of 17.92m which she had produced while finishing second in the Indian Grand Prix 5 in Chandigarh on September 10.

"I did not know the history (first Indian woman shot putter to win an Asian Games medal after 1951). My focus was to produce my best performance. I could not do that and I am not happy with my performance. But I won a medal, so I am very happy," she said later.

Baliyan, daughter of a traffic police head constable in Meerut, was an accidental shot putter as her name was entered in a junior tournament by mistake nine years ago.

The other Indian in the fray, Manpreet Kaur finished fifth with a best throw of 16.25m.