GUWAHATI, June 27 - Hima Das equalled meet record in the women�s 200m with a timing of 23.10 second in the ongoing 58th National Inter State Senior Athletic Championship.
On the second day of the championship at the Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium here today, Hima surprised Dutee Chand of Odisha, who clocked 23.41 and settled for the silver medal. Her State mate Srabani Nanda won the bronze medal with a timing of 23.87 second.
The qualifying mark for the forthcoming Jakarta Asian Games is 23.50 and Hima easily breached the qualifying mark.
Recently in the training-cum-exposure camp in Poland Hima clocked 23.22 and today she bettered her Poland timing. Yesterday in the heats she came fourth with 24.02 second. It was a dream run for Hima. �I am very happy with my timing, specially at home ground. Hope I will be able to improve my performance in Jakarta�, Hima said after winning the gold.
Asked if she thinks she can break the national record of 22.82 of Saraswati Saha during the Asian Games, she said, �I cannot say that now and everybody will see when I run the race there in the Asian Games.�
Hima became the first gold medal winning runner in senior nationals representing Assam.
Earlier, Laimwn Narzary won a bronze medal in women�s hi jump with a leap of 1.70 metre. Angel P Devasia of Kerala (1.78 m) won gold in this event while Rubina Yadav of Haryana (1.75m) bagged silver. Abhinaya Shetty of Karnataka (1.70m) also won bronze with Laimwn.
PTI adds: In men�s 200m, Muhammed Anas of Kerala took the gold in 20.98 seconds but the missed the qualifying mark of 20.87. VK Elakkiya Dasan of Tamil Nadu secured the silver in 21.31 while Parveen Kumar (21.43) got the bronze.
Anas, who began running 200m recently, had clocked 20.74 in Poland earlier this month.
�I am not happy with my race. I did not have a good start, I don�t know why. Because of that I could not qualify,� said Anas who will also run in 400m.
In the absence of Tintu Luka, who is currently injured, Komal Chodhary of Haryana took the gold in women�s 800m race, clocking 2 minute and 06.68 seconds, well outside the qualifying mark of 2:03.00. Shipra Sarkar of Bengal took the silver in 2:07.02 while Maharashtra�s Archana Adhav clocked 2:07.22 to take bronze.
Eight athletes have so far breached the Asian Games qualifying mark set by the Athletics Federation of India.
India has been allotted 102 (52 men and 50 women) spots by the organisers of the Asian Games.
Meanwhile, it is learnt that PT Usha has written to the AFI to consider Luka if she meets the qualifying mark at a later date.
�Yes, Usha has written a letter to us in that regard but we are yet to take a decision on that,� a top official of the AFI said.
