Video: PU Chitra’s unbelievable last lap run to win gold in 1,500m at Asian Athletics Championships 

Kerala athlete, PU Chitra’s mind-blowing run in the 1,500m event of the 22nd Asian Athletics Championships, which was held in Bhubaneswar, earlier this year, has gone viral.

The long distance runner snatched victory from nowhere in the last 200m of the race on a soggy and wet evening at Bhubaneshwar to leave the Kalinga Stadium in awe.

Clocking a time of 4 minutes and 17.92 seconds, the 22-year-old beat competition from Chinese and Japanese athletes to strike gold for India. In this process, she also broke all her individual track records.

In this clipping, it can be found that the commentators were not too hopeful about a podium finish by Chitra, but then the lanky runner pressed the power button and broke ahead of the pack just in the dying moments of the race to clinch a gold medal which never seemed to be coming her way.

Chitra was supposed to have done enough to represent India at the World Championships in London, which was held in August, but the IAAF rejected the Athletics Federation of India’s (AFI) request to include her in the Indian squad. Incidentally, before placing this request, AFI only decided to not send Chitra to the marquee event, but later did a u-turn.

It was felt the reason behind her exclusion was that her gold medal effort at the Asian Athletics Championships was not good enough, according to IAAF standards.

However, this didn’t have any effect on Chitra’s morale as she won gold in 1,500m women’s race in Asian Indoor Games in Turkmenistan in September.