Asian Athletics Championships: Abha wins a surprise silver; Jyothi, Parul clinch second medals

Bangkok: Unheralded Abha Khatua equalled the women's shot put national record of 18.06m while winning silver, even as Jyothi Yarraji and Parul Chaudhary clinched their second medals in the Asian Athletics Championships here on Sunday.

The 28-year-old Abha made a huge improvement of nearly a metre -- 93 cm -- from her earlier lifetime best of 17.13m as she sent the 4kg iron ball to a distance of 18.06m in her fourth throw to finish second behind Song Jiayuan (18.88m) of China.

Her second-best throw of the day was 17.10m.

Veteran Manpreet Kaur, whose national record Abha equalled, took the bronze with a first-round throw of 17m.

Jyothi, who had become the first Indian to win a 100m hurdles gold in the Asian Championships on Thursday, added a 200m silver to her kitty with a time 23.13 seconds.

Ace Indian long-distance runner Parul Chaudhary won her second medal of the championships with a silver in 5,000m.

Parul, who had won gold in 3,000m steeplechase on Friday, clocked 15 minutes, 52.35 seconds to finish second behind Yuma Yamamoto (15:51.16) of Japan in the 5000m final.

The 28-year-old Parul holds the 5,000m national record of 15:10.35.

Ankita won the bronze in 16:03.33 as India secured two medals from the event.

In men's javelin throw, D P Manu added a silver with a best throw of 81.01m while Gulveer Singh picked up a bronze in 5,000m race with a time of 13 minutes and 48.33 seconds.

Kishan Kumar and K M Chanda ran their personal best times to win a silver medal each in the men's and women's 800m race respectively on the final day of the championships.

Kumar clocked 1 minute, 45.88 seconds to finish second behind Abubaker H Abdalla (1:45.53) of Qatar, while Chanda crossed the finish line of the two-lap race in 2:01.58 behind M K Dissanayaka (2:00.66) of Sri Lanka.

Kumar's earlier personal best was 1:46.17, while Chanda equalled her earlier lifetime best of 2:01.58.

Earlier, Priyanka Goswami and Vikash Singh won silver and bronze medals in the women's and men's 20km race walk events respectively in the morning session.

National record holder Priyanka clocked 1 hour, 34 minutes and 24 seconds to finish second in the women's 20km race walk event behind Yang Liujing (1:32:37) of China.

Yukiko Umeno of Japan took the bronze with a time of 1:36:17.

The 27-year-old Priyanka's time, though, was well outside her personal best of 1:28:45, which she had clocked in 2021.

Another Indian in the fray, Bhawna Jat finished fifth with a time of 1:38:26.

In the men's 20km event, Vikash clocked 1:29:32 to take the bronze medal. Yutaro Murayama (1:24:40) of Japan won the gold while Wang Kaihua (1:25:29) of China took the silver medal.

National record holder Akshdeep Singh did not finish the race as he was disqualified by the judges.

The 27-year-old Vikash has a personal as well as season's best time of 1:20:05. It was his first international medal.

Both Priyanka, who had won a silver in 10,000m race walk in the 2022 Commonwealth Games, and Vikash have already qualified for the World Championships (August 17-29) in Budapest, Hungary, and the 2024 Paris Olympics.