Asian champion PU Chitra clocks season's best time to win women's 1500m gold in Sweden; Jinson Johnson collects silver

New Delhi: Asian champion PU Chitra ran her season’s best to win the women’s 1500 metres gold at the Folksam Grand Prix in Sollentuna, Sweden. Chitra, who won the gold in the Asian Championships in Doha in April, had a time of 4:12.65 to finish ahead of Kenya’s Mercy Cherono, who won 5000 metres gold in the 2014 Commonwealth Games, on Tuesday. Asian Games gold medallist Jinson Johnson won the silver in the men’s 1500 metres clocking 3:39.69. [caption id=“attachment_6847361” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] file photo P U Chitra. Reuters[/caption] Johnson had, on 15 June, bettered his own national record by clocking 3:37.62 at the Next Generation Athletics Meet at Nijmegen, the Netherlands. In a separate competition, national record holder long jumper Murali Sreeshankar won the gold at the Copenhagen Athletics Games in Denmark with an impressive opening round effort of 7.93m. Sreeshankar had jumps of 7.89, 7.88 and 7.61 metres in other rounds.