Indian mixed 4x400m relay team wins silver with Asian junior record in World U20 Athletics

Pic courtesy/Official account of Athletics Federation of India

The Indian mixed 4×400 relay team clinched a silver medal by bettering its own Asian record time in the final of the World U-20 Athletics Championships here. The Indian quartet of Barath Sridhar, Priya Mohan, Kapil and Rupal Chaudhary clocked 3 minutes and 17.67 seconds to finish behind USA (3:17.69) on Tuesday night. The Indian team bettered its own earlier Asian record of 3:19.62 set here a day earlier during the heats. The new timing of 3:17.67 is the second best (in juniors) in the all time list in the event, behind USA's.

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The Indian team had also qualified for the final as second overall across the three heat races behind USA. This was India's second consecutive medal in mixed 4x400m relay at the World U-20 Athletics Championships after the bronze at the last edition in Nairobi in 2021, where the event was introduced for the first time. Rupal is the only new member of the quartet that had won bronze last year while Sridhar, Priya and Kapil were there in that team. The silver medal-winning performance was all the more impressive as most of the Indians reached here just a day before the start of the event after an onerous journey due to visa issues. Jamaica took the bronze in 3:19.98.

India had won two silver and one bronze in the last edition. On Tuesday, Rupal and Priya had also made it to the 400m semifinals after strong performances in the first round heats. Rupal won heat in 52.50s, while Priya clocked 52.56s to finish second in heat number 5. Rupal was second overall across five heats, while Priya was fourth. Priya had finished fourth in the 400m final in the last edition in Nairobi in 2021. The 15-year-old Ashakiran Barla failed to make it to the women's 800m finals after finishing fifth in heat 3 and 15th overall in the semifinals with a time of 2:06.86. The top two in each heat and the next two fastest across the three semifinal heats qualify for the finals.