World U20 Athletics Championships: Indian mixed 4x400m relay team clinch historical bronze

Nairobi: The Indian mixed 4x400m relay team on Wednesday won a bronze to clinch the country’s fifth medal in the history of U-20 World Athletics Championships here. The Indian quartet of Bharath S, Priya Mohan, Summy and Kapil clocked 3:20.60 seconds to finish third in the final. Nigeria and Poland won the gold and silver medals with timings of 3:19.70s and 3:19.80s respectively. India had entered the final as the second best team overall with a championship record timing of 3:23.36s in the heat races held in the morning. The record was, however, short-lived as the athletes from Nigeria improved it by finishing their race in heat 2 with a timing of 3:21.66s.

Silver and Bronze in the Mixed 4x400m Relay go to Poland 🇵🇱 and India 🇮🇳 in 3:19.80 and 3:20.60 respectively!

There may not be a crowd at these #WorldAthleticsU20 Championships, but their team mates cheered them all the way around the track 👏 pic.twitter.com/wLD1ybTodz

— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) August 18, 2021

  There was a change in the Indian quartet in the final from the heat race with Bharath S running in place of Abdul Razzaq. Barath had clocked 47.55s recently during the Federation Cup National Junior Championships in Sangrur. For Priya and Summy, the mixed 4x400m relay final was their third race of the day as both also featured in the individual 400m heats. “We were inspired by Olympic javelin gold medallist Neeraj Chopra. We wanted to show the world that his win at the Olympics was not a fluke. Our win here will inspire many Indians to take up athletics,” Priya Mohan said after the final race. “It is a wonderful moment for me and my team-mates. It is a dream come true for us to win a medal at an international event and we want to thank World Athletics and our hosts Kenya for making it happen,” said Bharath. Before Wednesday’s bronze in mixed 4x400m relay, India had won medals through Seema Antil (bronze in discus throw, 2002), Navjeet Kaur Dhillon (bronze in discus throw, 2014), Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra (gold in javelin throw, 2016) and Hima Das (gold in 400m, 2018) in the world U-20 meet. Priya also qualified for the 400m final after finishing third, clocking 53.79s in heat 3. The final will be held on Saturday. The second Indian in the fray, Summy fizzled out in heat 2 and finished fifth with a timing of 55.43 seconds. In men’s shot put, Amandeep Singh Dhaliwal also qualified for the finals with a best throw of 17.92m. However, Vipin Kumar faltered in the hammer throw. His best attempt of 63.17m was way below the qualifying mark of 74m. In javelin throw, Kunwer Ajai Singh Rana and Jay Kumar both qualified for the final. Rana threw the spear to 71.05m while Kumar cleared 70.34m. The javelin final will be held on Friday.