New Delhi: India ended its campaign in style in the 17th Asian Junior Championships, finishing 3rd in the overall medal tally, with 17 medals, including 7 Gold, 4 Silver and 6 Bronze at Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam on Monday.
Japan took the top honours in the overall medal tally with 14 gold medals while China followed with 11 gold medals. India upgraded its ranking from fifth in the previous edition to third this time. The Indian team won 12 medals, including 2 Gold, 6 Silver and 4 bronze in the previous Championships held at Taipei in 2014.
The Indians seemed to save their best for the last day when they bagged 3 Gold medals, 3 Silver and 2 bronze, with two of their athletes, Lily Das and Jisna Matthew completing a double with their second Gold medal respectively in the Championships.
It was a dream run for the 17-year-old Lily Das from Triveni in Hoogly district (West Bengal) as she clocked 2:06.64sec to win the women’s 800m, her second Gold in the Championships. Earlier, the youngster who had started as a child in the 400m and 600m and later shifted to longer distance, won the Gold in her favourite event, the 1500m.
As in the 1500m race held earlier on Saturday which was won by the Indians in both the men and women section, the 800m race witnessed an encore today as Amoj Jacob won the Gold in the men’s 800m, with a timing of 1:51.82sec.
The icing on the cake came from the women’s 4x400m relay team which struck the last Gold for India in this championships with PT Usha’s protégé Jisna Mathew romping home in style when the Indians were lagging behind with some distance to go in the race. The Indian women’s relay quarter of Jisna, Shaharbana Shidiqui Thadian Parambil, V. Subha and George Linet clocked 3:43.57sec to take the top honours.
Rio aspirant Neeraj Chopra won the Silver in the men’s javelin with a best throw of 77.60 metres, behind Japan’s Sado Juniya (77.97m). The Indian men 4x400m relay team, comprising of Kiran Murugan, Pankaj Malik, Harsh Kumar and Amoj Jacob finished with a Silver, clocking 3:12.12sec, behind Thailand’s 3:11.59. Earlier, in the men’s 10,000m, Abhishek Pal bagged the Silver with a timing of 31:24.06sec while compatriot Kishen Narsi Tadvi took the Bronze medal with a timing of 32:07.12sec. Sonu Kumar added a Bronze medal in the men’s triple jump with a performance of 15.99 metres.
The 2015 Asian Youth Championships gold medallist Beant Singh finished fourth in the men’s 800m, clocking 1:53.16sec.
