Dutee Chand, Anu Rani Shine At Fed Cup Athletics Meet

Dutee Chand has become the fastest runner in the country after winning the women’s 100m sprint in the 21st Federation Cup National Senior Athletics Championships in Patiala on Sunday.

While Odisha-born Dutee clinched the competition with a timing of 11.48 seconds, another player from her home state, Srabani Nanda, came second with 11.57 seconds and Merlin K. Joseph of Kerala came third with a time of 11.68 seconds.

Earlier, Srabani had beaten Dutee in a 200-m contest so in this 100m sprint, Dutee got back at her. Recently, Dutee fell short of a major mark to qualify for world championship by 0.04 seconds. Last year, the same happened with qualifying for the Olympics when she missed the cut with 0.01 seconds. However, that has not lulled Dutee’s spirit in the least.

Apart from this, javeline throw also saw some great performance by Anu Rani whose pear throw at 61.86 m broke her own national record of 60.01, which was in the last event. Her throw qualifies her for the World Championships in London as the cut was at 61.40m. Anu, who as representing Uttar Pradesh, won gold with her performance, while Suman Devi, also of Uttar Pradesh, took silver with 55.03 m while K. Rashmi of Karnataka took bronze with 51.12m.

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Rani has been training under former Commonwealth bronze medallist Kashinath Naik and her game has been improving ever since. He has put many restrictions of the ace thrower as cellphones, movies and Facebook stay out of limits during the national camps in Patiala.

“I don’t even know how a movie theatre looks like,” she told The Indian Express. But then follows a disclaimer, “Kashi sir is not as strict as he seems.” She says he tells her that giving up the small joys of life will bear fruit in the longer run.

Picture credit- Indiawest