Under 20 World Championships: Indian sprinter Hima Das enters 400m final

Indian sprinter Hima Das stormed into the women’s 400m final as she conquered the semifinals heats on the second day of the IAAF World Under-20 Athletics Championships on Thursday. She turned out to be the fastest runner of the event.

The 18 year old had led the time charts in the first round heats on Wednesday with a timing of 52.25. She impressed once again by clocking 52.10 seconds to win the semifinals heat number one and led the overall time charts.

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Jisna Mathew, another Indian who features at this Under 20 event failed to make the finals after finishing fifth in semifinals heat number 2 with a timing of 53.86 and 13th overall. Andrea Miklos of Romania was the second in overall time charts as she clocked 52.58.

The first two finishers in each of the four heats and the next two fastest qualify for the final which will be run on Friday. Hima Das is a favourite to win gold as she is the U-20 season leader in this quarter mile event. If the Assam girl succeeds in doing so, she will become the first Indian athlete to do it in a track event in an U-20 World Championships.

Das clocked an Indian Under 20 record of 51.32 seconds to finish sixth in the Commonwealth Games 400m final in Gold Coast in April. Since then, she has kept on improving her timings. She lowered the Indian Under 20 record in 400m to 51.13 seconds while winning gold in the recent National Inter State Championships in Guwahati.

Elsewhere, in men’s 400m, Gaurav failed to progress further as he finished fifth in his heat and 42nd overall with a timing of 48.61. Hammer thrower Ashish Jakhar also made it to the final round after finishing eighth overall in the qualification round with a throw of 70.52m while his companion Damneet Singh clocked 67.48 to crash out after finishing 15th.