Sprinter Dutee Chand fails to qualify, Kaur to perform today

Sprinter Dutee Chand fails to qualify, Kaur to perform today



Sprinter Dutee Chand marked her season best timing of 23.85 seconds in the women’s 200m race event, but came last in the heat 4, failing to qualify. Dutee, who had qualified for the 100m and 200m Olympics on the basis of world rankings, did not have a great campaign. She had earlier clocked 11.54 seconds in the 100m event, well outside her national record of 11.17 seconds—also her season’s best—to finish seventh in heat 5 and 45th overall out of 54 competitors.

Discus thrower Kamalpreet Kaur, who produced one of the best performances by an Indian in the qualifying round, will perform in the finals today. The 25-year-old Kaur, competing in qualification B, sent the discus to a distance of 64m in her third and final attempt to be one of the only two automatic qualifiers for the final round, the other being American Valarie Allman (66.42m). The Indian ended ahead of defending gold-medallist Sandra Perkovic (63.75m) of Croatia and reigning world champion Yaime Perez (63.18) of Cuba. Perkovic qualified at third and Perez at seventh.

Sanjeev Rajput and Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar will also look to round off what has been a forgettable campaign for the Indian shooting team on a positive note when they compete in the men’s 50m rifle 3 positions. India, who were expected to do well in shooting, is staring at the prospect of two straight Olympics without medals, with only the men’s 50m event still to go. For this particular event, Rajput won India’s first Olympic quota at the ISSF World Cup in Rio de Janeiro in 2019, while Tomar secured the second quota at the Asian Shooting Championship in Doha later that year, which the Indian shooters dominated throughout. However, the outing in the Japanese capital has proved to be a far cry from the shooters’ unprecedented show in 2019. Barring Saurabh Chaudhary in the men’s 10m air pistol, none of the Indian shooters could make the finals in Tokyo, with some even failing to register competitive scores.

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