On the final day of the 21st Asian Athletics Championships being held in Wuhan, China, Tintu Luka won India’s only gold of the day. India won four other medals on the day to finish the Championships in third place.
China, with 15 gold medals, 13 silver and bronze medals, topped the table while Qatar, 7 gold medals, 2 silver medals and a solitary bronze medal, edged out India to the second place. Japan, 4 gold medals, 3 silver medals and 11 bronze medals, and Bahrain, with 3 gold and silver medals and 2 bronze medals, rounded off the top 5.
In the 800m final, Tintu Luka clocked 2:01.53, her season’s best timing, to win the gold ahead of China’s Zhao Jing (2:03.40) and Sri Lankan Nimali Klarachchige (2:03.94).
This gold medal is Tintu’s first individual gold at a major multi-discipline tournament having finished 3rd and 2nd at the 2010 and 2014 Asian Games respectively. She has, however, won 2 gold medals as part of the 4x400m relay teams at the 2013 Asian Championships and 2014 Asian Games.
The 26-year old has yet to qualify for the Rio Olympics, which requires a time less than 2:01.00, but being the Continental Championship winner, she reserved a spot at the Beijing World Championships in August this year.
2 silver and 2 bronze medals on final day
Other medal winners on the final day included Jinson Johnson, Dharambir Singh, Srabani Nanda and the 4x400m women’s relay team.
Johnson won the silver at the men’s 800m with a time of 1:49.69, where Qatari Musaab Bala (1:49.40) clinched the gold and Japan’s Kawamoto Sho (1:50.50) rounded off the podium places.
Dharambir, in his 23.54-second 200m run which secured the bronze medal for India, broke Anil Kumar’s 15-year old national record of 20.73 seconds. Srabani Nanda won her first major international medal by finishing 3rd courtesy of a personal best time of 23.54 seconds.
Defending champions in the 4x400m women’s relay race, India disappointed as they let China take the gold by finishing almost half a second behind the hosts. The Indian women finished with a time of 3:33.81 as Machettira Raju Poovamma, who had already secured a silver medal in the women’s 400m race, struggled in the rain. China took the top spot clocking 3:33.44 while Kazakhstan finished 3rd with a time of 3:35.14.
The 4x400m men’s relay team finished just outside the medal spots by finishing 4th, while Lalita Babar, having already won the Steeplechase gold, failed to finish in the women’s 10,000m race. 2014 Asian Games gold medalist in the Javelin throw, Annu Rani, finished a disappointing fifth to round off the day.
Final medal tally:
| Position | Country | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
1 | China | 15 | 13 | 13 | 41 |
| 2 | Qatar | 7 | 2 | 1 | 10 |
| 3 | India | 4 | 5 | 1 | 10 |
| 4 | Japan | 4 | 3 | 11 | 18 |
| 5 | Bahrain | 3 | 3 | 2 | 8 |
This was India's best finish after 2007 in Amman, Jordan where they finished second in the medals table.
