Asian Athletics Championships, Day 4 Wrap: India's Gold Rush Continues With Gulveer, Pooja, Nandini On Top

Long-distance runner Gulveer Singh shattered a decade-old meet record, high-jumper Pooja Singh delivered a personal best show, while heptathlete Nandini Agasara rose to the occasion after a setback as the trio added three more gold medals to India's kitty on the penultimate day of the 26th Asian Athletics Championships here on Friday.

The country's overall tally swhapataelled to 18, including eight gold, seven silver and three bronze medals. India look well on course to match or better the 27 medals won in the 2023 edition, having already surpassed the gold haul of six medals in that year.

Gulveer etched his name among the greats of Indian long-distance running by winning a tightly-contested men's 5000m final to add to his 10,000m gold won on the opening day of the competition.

The national-record-holding runner clocked 13:24.77sec to edge past Thailand's Kieran Tuntivate, who finished close behind at 13:24.97sec, while Japan's Nagiya Mori took bronze in 13:25.06sec.

The previous championship record belonged to Qatar's Mohamed Al-Garni, who had clocked 13:34.47sec in the 2015 edition.

Later, 18-year-old Pooja jumped to a personal best of 1.89m in her penultimate attempt to finish ahead of Uzbekistan's Safina Sadullaeva (1.86m).

The Haryana teen, whose father is a construction worker, has been doing well at the continental level, having earlier collected a gold at the Asian Under-23 Championships in 2023.

Nandini then became only the third Indian heptathlete to win an Asian gold after Swapna Barman (2017) and Soma Biswas (2005). Agasara collected 5941 points to bag the top honours, making a strong comeback to win the 800m race after a poor javelin throw performance of 34.18m.

China's Liu Jingyi, who led Agasara after winning javelin throw, claimed the silver with 5869 points.

The win completed a remarkable double for Gulveer, who had earlier bagged gold in the 10,000m competition on the opening day with a timing of 28:38.63sec.

With this performance, Gulveer joined an elite group of Indian athletes to have won gold in the men's 5000m event of the continental meet -- the other three being Gopal Saini (1981), Bahadur Prasad (1993), and G Lakshmanan (2017). He matched Lakshmanan in winning gold in both the 10,000m and 5000m events in the same edition.

The 26-year-old from Atrauli in Uttar Pradesh had also won a bronze in the 2023 edition.

However, there was mild disappointment in the women's 3000m steeplechase, where defending champion Parul Chaudhary had to settle for silver.

She clocked 9:12.46sec and was bested by Kazakhstan's Norah Jeruto Tanui (9:10.46sec). The bronze also went to a Kazakh, Daisy Jepkemei (9:27.51sec).

Earlier, India's 4x100m men's relay team was disqualified during the preliminary round after a faulty baton exchange but Sachin Yadav and Yashvir Singh made the men's javelin throw finals alongside reigning Olympic champion Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan.

The quartet of Pranav Pramod Gaurav, Ragul Kumar Ganesh, Manikanta Hoblidhar and Amlan Borgohain was knocked out of the competition after being found guilty of baton exchange outside the takeover zone, violating World Athletics' Technical Rule 24.7.

The Malaysian team was also disqualified for a similar violation.

However, there was good news for the Indian contingent elsewhere as Sachin and Yashvir entered the 12-man javelin throw final.

While Sachin covered 79.62m to be placed fifth, Yashvir qualified for Saturday's finale with a throw of 76.67m.

At the top was Nadeem, who is appearing in his first competition since the gold-winning monstrous throw of 92.97m in the Paris Olympics last year. He came up with an effort of 86.34m in the qualifying round.

In other events, women's 100m hurdles gold-winner Jyothi Yarraji and Nithya Gandhe advanced to the 200m finals after clocking 23.74sec and 23.77sec respectively in their heats.

In the men's 200m event, Animesh Kujur entered the finals after clocking 20.81sec in the semifinal race.