Shourya Ambure, 16, clocked a personal best time of 13.76 seconds in winning the girls’ 100m Hurdles silver medal for India in the Asian Youth Games Athletics competition at the Bahrain National Stadium in Manama on Thursday. The Middle-East has been her happy hunting ground, having won bronze in the Asian Youth Championships in Dammam earlier this year.
Shourya Ambure, whose previous best was 13.80 seconds in Dammam, earner her medal at the end of a day which started with Ranjana Yadav claiming silver for India in the girls’ 5000m Race Walk in a time of 24:25.88 and was punctuated by the bronze earned by Jasmine Kaur in girls Shot Put with a personal best effort of 14.86m on her fifth attempt.
India’s girls and boys expectedly won the Kabaddi gold medals with contrasting 75-21 and 35-32 victories respectively over Iran’s teams. The boys’ final, which India lead 21-16 at the half-time break, should serve as a warning sign for the Indian Kabaddi ecosystem that Iran will continue to be a thorn in the flesh.
India has hauled in 10 medals so far to be placed fifth on the charts with 2 gold, 3 silver and 5 bronze medals. Three of the five earlier medals came from Kurash (Kanishka Bidhuri in girls 52kg, Arvind in boys 83kg and Khushi in girls 70kg) and two from Taekwondo (Debasish Das in Boys Poomsae and Yaswini Singh and Shivanshu Patel in Mixed Pair Poomsae.
Meanwhile, at the Military Sports Association in Riffa, Avik Bhatia (on Nathan) and Krishna Sahithi (Darido) came up with clear rounds in the Show Jumping competition while Arunkumar Harshyit (Morocco) and Jaiveer Varma (Divine de la Nave) incurred a 2-point time penalty and a 4-point jump penalty respectively to leave India in the sixth place after the first day.
The two who incurred penalties were riding their mounts for the first time. Arunkumar Harshiyt, who had not competed in an FEI event in a year, did well to have a clear round on a vastly experienced horse but picked up 2 penalties for taking 2.58 seconds longer than the stipulated 90 to complete the course while Jaiveer Verma dropped a bar while finishing in 79.83 seconds.
The second round is scheduled for Friday.
Photo: Screenshot of 100m Hurdles final from olympics.com
