Indians add three gold medals to kitty

New Delhi, April 25

Ranvir Singh and Ekta Dey clinched the men’s and women’s 3000m steeplechase gold medals, respectively, as Indians continued their dominant show in the Asian U20 Athletics Championships in Dubai.

Ekta claimed gold with a time of 10 minutes, 31.92 seconds, while Ranvir emerged victorious clocking 9:22.62.

Earlier, Anurag Singh Kaler won the gold medal in the men’s shot put with a throw of 19.23 metres as the Indian athletes added seven medals to their kitty today. Defending champion Siddharth Choudhary settled for bronze with a throw of 19.02m.

Amanat Kamboj, training at Patiala’s National Centre of Excellence, won silver in the women’s discus throw with a best effort of 50.45m.

In the morning session, race walker Aarti set the ball rolling, winning a hard-fought bronze in the women’s 10,000m. Aarti’s bronze winning time of 47:45.33 was better than the World U20 Athletics Championships qualification time of 49 minutes.

Aman Choudhary won bronze in the men’s 400m in 47.53 seconds. — PTI

There’ll be pressure on Neeraj: Adams

Bengaluru: Neeraj Chopra might be feeling the “massive weight of expectations” as he prepares to defend his javelin gold in the upcoming Paris Olympics, reckons legendary New Zealand shot putter Valerie Adams. “There’s undoubtedly immense pressure on Neeraj Chopra as he tries to defend the gold. I’m sure he can feel it. The noise can be overwhelming,” she said. However, Adams, ambassador of the TCS World 10K, said that a seasoned performer like Neeraj will find a way to ward off the pressure and perform. “Neeraj is seasoned. He knows precisely what needs to be done. He’ll know what his training looks like, where his competitions are and what needs to do be done to make sure that he’s on the right track leading into this Olympics,” said the two-time Olympics gold winner.