Sreekiran Nandakumar shocked Asian junior champion Anu Kumar to win the boys’ 800m gold with a personal best time of 1:50.93 seconds at the Youth Olympics Games’ Asian area athletics qualification meet here on Thursday.
With Anu winning the silver in 1:51.13, it was a happy one-two for India, but since only one Youth Olympics (YOG) qualification quota is allotted to a country in each event, the junior Asian champion will miss the Games to be held in Buenos Aires in October.
Four silvers
India also won four silver medals through Radha Chaudhary in the girls’ 800m, 400m hurdler Vishnu Priya, Seema in girls’ 3,000m and Suraj Pawar Soren in the boys’ 10,000m race walk, but only the last three got YOG spots.
Meanwhile, Praveen Chithravel was way below his best of 16.22m as he finished fourth in the boys triple jump with 15.51 but still got a Buenos Aires ticket as Asia had four berths in the event.
Nisar Ahmad, who finished fifth in the boys’ 200m in 22.16s, also bagged a lucky berth as two Chinese athletes finished above him.
The results (events featuring Indians only with gold medallists):
Boys, 200m: 1. Abdel Aziz (Qat) 21.37s, 5. Nisar Ahmad (Ind) 22.16. 800m: 1. Sreekiran Nandakumar (Ind) 1:50.93s, 2. Anu Kumar (Ind) 1:51.13. 10,000m race walk: 1. Xin Wang (Chn) 47:40.11s, 2. Suraj Pawar Soren (Ind) 47:40.61. Triple jump: 1. Gyu Min (Kor) 15.76m, 4. Praveen Chithravel (Ind) 15.51.
Girls: 800m: 1. Maki Ueda (Jpn) 2:08.28s, 2. Radha Chaudhary (Ind) 2:08.86. 400m hurdles: 1. Jui Yang (Tpe) 59.78s, 2. Vishnu Priya Jayaprakasan (Ind) 1:00.95. Long jump: 1. Azuki Nakatsugawa (Jpn) 6.17m, 7. Deepanshi Singh (Ind) 5.53.
