World Athletics Championships | Mixed relay team books Olympics berth, Dutee Chand crashes out
India’s athletic contingent finally had a good day in office with their Kerala quartet of Muhammed Anas, V.K. Vismaya, Jisna Mathew and Noah Nirmal Tom sealing an Olympic berth. In other events, the likes of M.P. Jabir and Dutee Chand failed to qualify with the required timing and crashed out.
It was an eventful day for the mixed relay team, who clocked a brilliant 3 minutes 16.14 seconds to finish third in heat number 2 thereby booking the all-important spot in Tokyo. Despite making a good start and executing everything right, the team saw baton fumble right before the final lap.
However, the team recovered marvellously from that to finish third in the semifinal, as they edged out Belgium by two hundredths of a second. The top eight finishers of the mixed relay got a spot each at the Olympics.
However, it wasn’t all hay and shiny in Doha for the country as Jabir could only finish fifth, with 49.71s, in the men's 400m hurdles semifinal and eventually failed to qualify for the final. The 23-year-old Asian bronze medallist had everyone’s hopes up but could finish a decent 16th overall, which was actually quite impressive on the big stage.
Apart from Jabir, World University Games champion Dutee Chand also crashed out of her pet 100m event as she seventh in her the heat (37th overall) clocking 11.48s. She couldn’t enter the semifinal.
