On Thursday, 18- year-old sprinter Hima Das became the first Indian woman to win the gold in the 400m final race at the IAAF World Under-20 Athletics Championships in Tampere, France.
Hima Das Creates History, Gives India Its First World Gold Medal On Track
Hima Das, daughter of a rice farmer from Dhing village in Nagaon district of Assam, grew up playing #football with boys in the mud pits next to the rice fields. But a local coach sensed her talent and advised her to take up athletics. And the rest now is history…
Full story: https://goo.gl/7B4774
Posted by Life Beyond Numbers on Friday, July 13, 2018
Das clocked 51.46s and claimed the first position. Andrea Miklos of Romania, who came second with a timing of 52.07s to claim silver and USA’s Taylor Manson clocked 52.28s, taking home bronze.
According to the PTI report, the Assam girl was a favorite to win gold as she is the U-20 season leader in this quarter-mile event. Das clocked an Indian U-20 record of 51.32 seconds to finish sixth in the Commonwealth Games 400m final in Gold Coast in April. Since then she has been training to improve her timings.
Seema Punia (bronze in discus in 2002) and Navjeet Kaur Dhillon (bronze in discus in 2014) were the previous medal winners at the World Junior Championships.
Hima now joins the illustrious company of star javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, who won a gold in Poland in the last edition in 2016 in a world record effort, as mentioned in the report.
What makes Das’ win historic is that she is the first Indian track athlete to have won a medal in the history of this competition.
You made us all proud, Hima.