Vismaya beats Hima Das in 400m at Indian GP

Sangrur (Punjab), March 2: V K Vismaya stunned her fancied opponents, M R Poovamma and Hima Das, to win the gold medal in the women's 400m race at the Indian Grand Prix-3 here on Saturday.

Vismaya, who had won a team gold in 4x400m at the 2018 Asian Games, has only been competing in international tournaments since last year, but she managed to get the better of two-time Asian Games gold medallist Poovamma and world junior champion and national record holder Hima. Timings and efforts were on the lower side as athletes competed in chilly conditions at the War Heroes Stadium.

However, that did little to deter the 22-year-old Vismaya, who recorded a time of 53.80. She was 0.26 seconds faster than Poovamma who clocked a time of 54.06. The bronze medal was claimed by Prachi of Uttar Pradesh who recorded a time of 54.49. Prachi though managed to keep Hima off the podium.

Das, who holds the national record of 50.79 in her name, was well off her best as she recorded a time of 55.19. The time was the slowest of her career. However, Das was only running her first competitive race of the season and is likely to improve as the season progresses.

The victory was the second for Vismaya at the Indian GP this season. She had also won a gold at the first Indian GP of the season in Patiala on February 23.

Meanwhile, Rajiv Arokia won the men's 400m race with a timing of 46.32. National record holder Mohammed Anas who made a start to his season with the Sangrur meet clocked 46.60 and finished second, while with the timing of 46.75, Jeevan K S won the bronze.

Another national record holder, M Shreeshankar was also well off his personal best in the long jump, but still managed to do enough to win the gold medal. Sreeshankar recorded a best jump of 7.74m to step on top of the podium.

Sreeshankar, who had a personal best of 8.20m, recorded a jump of 7.72m to start out with before improving to 7.74 with his second. He recorded a subsequent jump of 7.70m before fouling his fourth attempt. That effort would be his last of the competition as he opted out of his final two attempts.

The silver went to M Silambarasan of Tamil Nadu who recorded a best effort of 7.25m on his third attempts. Silambarasan narrowly beat Siddharth Mohan Naik of Karnataka who took the third step of the podium with an effort only 1cm short of silver place.

Naik recorded a jump of 7.24m as his best of the competition. An upset was also the outcome of the men's 800m race. Asian Games gold medallist Manjeet Singh had to be content with a silver after clocking a time of 1.49.82. The gold medal went to Kerala's Mohammed Afsal who crossed the finish line with a time of 1.49.48. Ankit of Haryana clinched bronze with a time of 1.50.11.