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India’s two-time Olympian Dutee Chand enhanced her profile on Tuesday by improving her women’s 100m record at the All India Inter-University Championships being held in Bhubaneswar.
On her way to winning gold in the 100m dash, the 25-year-old clocked 11.44 seconds to erase the previous record of 11.57 seconds. Dutee Chand’s personal best of 11.17 seconds in 100m was also a national record set last year.
The national champion was satisfied with her performance in Bhubaneswar, saying it was a positive start to a packed 2022 calendar. She said over the phone from Bhubaneswar:
“I’m happy with my performance of 11.44 seconds in 100m as it was my first competition since the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games held last year."
With Tuesday’s performance, the Odisha sprinter has also qualified for the World University Games in June. Dutee Chand won gold in the 100m dash at the 2019 World University championships in Italy. Her next stop will be the Indian Grand Prix (IGP) in March. Dutee Chand added:
“As usual, the series of the IGP’s will act as a warm-up event for the main domestic competition in April. But I will also try to dip below 11.30 seconds in the 100m dash."
According to Dutee’s personal coach N Ramesh, her performance of 11.44 seconds early in the season was good. The athletics coach said:
“The main goal this year is to improve Dutee's personal best before the Asian Games in September."
The Indian sprinter's initial plan was to start her 2022 season with an Asian Indoor Championship in February. However, a spike in Omicron cases in Kazakhstan forced the organizers to postpone the continental event.
Of the three major international competitions this year, including the Asian Games in September, the ace Indian sprinter will mainly concentrate on the continental games.
One of Dutee Chand's goals this year is to improve on the medals she won at the 2018 Jakarta Asian Games. Dutee won silver medals in both the 100m and 200m dash in Indonesia.
