It was a field day for Indian athletes as sprinters Srabani Nanda (200m), Mohammad Anas (400m) and long jumper Ankit Sharma secured their qualification for Rio Olympics as the number of Indian athletes going to Rio crossed 100 for the first ever time.
This comes a day after Dutee Chand broke an astonishing 36-year jinx to become the first Indian since PT Usha (in 1980) to qualify for Olympics in the 100 m event.
Indian quartermiler Mohammad Anas qualified for Rio Olympics by shattering the men’s 400m national record on the second day of Polish Athletics Championship at Bydgoszcz.
21-year-old Anas clocked 45.40secs, the exact Rio qualification timing, to book the Olympics ticket last night and become the 21st Indian track and field athlete to qualify for the upcoming Games.
The Kerala athlete Anas shattered his own national record of 45.44secs which he set on Friday on the first day of the same competition at this Polish city.
Rajiv Arokia, whose national record of 45.47secs Anas broke on Friday, finished second with a timing of 45.60secs.
Anas had won a silver in the Federation Cup National Athletics Championships here in April with a timing of 45.74secs.
Away from track and field, in Archery, Atanu Das was chosen to represent India in the men’s individual recurve event at Rio Olympics.
Good luck to all four of them!
With PTI inputs (Featured image source: Twitter / Youtube)