Women’s Relay Team Creates New National Record At Indian Grand Prix

The star sprinters of the Indian women’s 4×100 metre relay team have set a new national record at the ongoing Indian Grand Prix in Patiala, Punjab. Led by Dutee Chand and Hima Das, the team also consisted of sprinters Dhanalakshmi and Archana Suseentran. The relay team clocked a record time of 43.47 seconds, beating the previous best in this category by five seconds.

“One more NATIONAL RECORD created at #IGP4 in Patiala by our W: 4×100m sprinters @HimaDas8 @DuteeChand Dhanalakshmi & Archana Suseentran with a time of 43.47s; Previous Record 43.42s (2016),” the Athletics Federation of India revealed in a tweet.

However, even though Chand broke her own national record by clocking 11.17 seconds in the 100 metre sprint, she missed on qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics spot, the qualification mark for which was 11.15 seconds.

While this might be a blow, another female athlete bound for Tokyo, Kamalpreet Kaur, also created a new national record in discus throw. Kaur hurled the discus to 66.59 metres, improving on her own previous best of 65.06 metre at the Federation Cup held in March 2021. Her previous record had made Kaur the first Indian woman athlete to breach the 65 metre mark in discus throw. Now that she has achieved this goal twice within the span of four months, it puts Kaur in a league of her own among Indian women athletes.