Current Affairs: As many as 15 athletes has qualified for the Rio Olympics.
Ace discus thrower Vikas Gowda, the reigning Commonwealth Games and Asian champion, was among the latest three who qualified for Rio this month.
In other events, Asian champion Inderjeet Singh (men’s shot put) finished 11th and last in the final round while Tintu Luka (women’s 800m) failed to qualify for semifinals.
All the seven race walkers (Gurmeet Singh, Chandan Singh and Baljinder Singh in men’s 20km; Khushbir Kaur and Sapna in women’s 20km; Sandeep Kumar and Manish Singh Rawat in men’s 50km) who took part in the championships brought up the rear.
In the women’s marathon, O P Jaisha smashed her own national record with a timing of 2:34:43 to finish 18th with compatriot Sudha Singh just behind her.
The Indian women’s 4x400m team crashed out at the heat stage. The quartet of Luka, MR Poovamma, Debasree Majumdar and Jisna Mathew finished last in an eight-team heat with a season’s best timing of 3:29.08.
However, the Asian Championships held two months earlier in Wuhan (China) saw the Indians doing better. India ended the event in third position, the best finish after 2007, with 13 medals, including four gold. The gold winners were Inderjeet, Gowda, Babar and Luka.
