BHUBANESWAR 20-May-2016
Odisha woman sprinter Dutee Chand bagged a double by winning gold medals in 100 and 200 metre events of the Taiwan Open Athletics Championship at Taoyuan City in Taipei today. She clocked 11.50 seconds in 100 metre and 23.52 seconds in 200 metre. Srabanin Nanda made it a one-two for Odisha and India by capturing silver medal in 200 metre sprint with a timing of 23.55 seconds.
Earlier on May 18, Dutee and Srabani helped India break the 18-year-old National record in 4x100m women relay event, while finishing fourth at the IAAF World Challenge in the Chinese capital Beijing. The Indian team, comprising of Dutee Chand, Srabni Nanda, HM Jyoti and Marlin Joseph clocked 44.03 seconds to erase the previous National record of 44.43 seconds, created by the quartet of Saraswati Dey, Rachita Mistry, EB Shyla and PT Usha in Fukuoka, Japan on July 22, 1998.
The Indian team ran with Merlin Joseph taking the start and passing the baton to HM Jyoti. The latter was followed by the Srabni Nanda, who passed the baton to Dutee Chand for the final stretch. The host nation grabbed the first and third positions with China A and China B team on the first and third position respectively while Japan finished second. China A team clocked 42.65 seconds for the gold medal while Japan team finished the race in 43.81 seconds for the silver medal and China B team finished third for the bronze medal by clocking 43.89 seconds.
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PHOTO: Dutee Chand (2nd left) and Srabani Nanda (2nd right) pose with their medals in Taipei on May 20, 2016.