Asian Athletics Championships: Jyothi Yarraji, Abdulla Aboobacker, Ajay Kumar Clinch Gold

Jyothi Yarraji: Indian hurdler Jyothi Yarraji, triple jumper Abdulla Aboobacker and middle-distance runner Ajay Kumar Saroj clinched gold medals at the Asian Athletics Championships 2023, here on Thursday.

Competing in women’s 100m hurdles, Jyothi could not match her national record of 12.82s under wet conditions. However, her timing of 13.09s was enough to beat Asuka Terada of Japan, who came a close second, clocking 13.13s. This was the first gold medal for the 23-year-old Jyothi Yarraji at the continental event.

On the other hand, Japan's Masumi Aoki clocked 13.26s to bag bronze, edging out India’s Nithya Ramraj, who came fourth in 13.55s. Jyothi Yarraji had also topped the heats earlier in the day with a timing of 12.98s.

Meanwhile, Ajay Kumar Saroj clinched his second gold medal in the men’s 1500m race at the Asian championships.

The 2017 champion had settled for a silver medal at the last edition held in Doha four years ago but he regained his title with a timing of 3:41.51 at the Suphachalasai National Stadium.

Yusuke Takahashi of Japan won silver in 3:42.04 while China's Liu Dezhu won bronze in 3:42.30. Reigning Asian Games champion Jinson Johnson, who holds the national record of 3:35.24, finished 11th among 19 runners with 3:46.91.

Triple jumper Abdulla Aboobacker, who won silver at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham last year with a 17.02m effort, bagged the gold medal with a season's best leap of 16.92m in Bangkok. The winning jump came in his fourth attempt, an olympics.com report said.

Hikaru Ikehata of Japan hit 16.73m for silver while Kim Jangwoo of the Republic of Korea won bronze for his 16.59m effort.

Aishwarya Kailash Mishra, running in women’s 400m, and Tejaswin Shankar, competing in men’s decathlon, settled for bronze medals.

Aishwarya, who has a personal best of 51.18, finished her 400m race in 53.07. Ramanayaka Nadeesha (52.61) of Sri Lanka claimed gold ahead of Farida Solieva of Uzbekistan, who clocked 52.95 seconds.

Commonwealth Games 2022 high jump bronze medallist Tejaswin Shankar led the decathlon with 4,124 points from five events on Wednesday. However, a score of 562 in the pole vault and 627 in the discus throw by the Indian athlete saw Yuma Maruyama of Japan and Suttisak Singkhon of Thailand leapfrog him on the leaderboards.

Yuma Maruyama clinched the gold medal with 7,745 points, Suttisak Singkhon, with 7,626 points, claimed the silver while Tejaswin Shankar scored 7,527 points to complete the podium.

In men’s 400m, India’s Muhammed Ajmal missed out on a medal despite pulling off a season’s best performance. He finished fourth in 45.36 while compatriot Rajesh Ramesh was sixth in 45.67, also a season’s best.

Asian Championships 2017 bronze medallist Sanjivani Baburao Jadhav also came fourth in the women’s 10,000m with a timing of 34:04.47. In the women’s high jump, Pooja and Rubina Yadav tied for seventh place. Both had a best of 1.75m.