Gumi
The fourth day of the Asian Athletics Championship 2025 in Gumi, South Korea was a notable day for Indian women athletes, who won 2 gold medals and 1 silver medal. Overall, Indian athletes achieved podium finish in 4 events and wrote 4 incredible stories from their performance. But, in this, the most inspiring story has been Pooja, who has won the gold medal, facing a lot of struggles.
Pooja created history by winning gold in high jump
18 -year -old Pooja jumped 1.89 meters in the high jump of women and won the gold medal for the country, the first gold medal since the Bobby Alicius victory in 2000. The young player broke his own under-20 national record, but missed the breaking of the 1.92 meter senior national record made by Sahana Kumari in 2012.
Start by making Parali a landing area
The story of worship, born in Basti village in Fatehabad district of Haryana in 2007, is quite inspiring. Early training facilities of mason Hansraj’s daughter Pooja were very simple. Pooja learned to jump using a landing area made of bamboo sticks and straw -filled sacks. From here to the record book, Pooja made her name from a place where dreams are ordinary and high jump never comes in the list. However, Pooja fulfilled her dream with her determination.
Fraled shoes before the event starts
The struggle is an integral part of a player’s journey and it did not end on the first day of the competition for worship. Their spikes were torn during the practice, but they did not stop. They wrapped them with straps and created history by connecting them together and became the youngest Asian champion.
India won 4 medals on the fourth day
On the fourth day of the Asian Athletics Championship, on Friday, India’s long distance runner Ghulaveer Singh (5000 meters), Pooja (high jump) and Nandini Agasara (Heptathlon) won gold medals at their respective events. Also, Parul Chaudhary broke the national record of 3000 meter steeplechase.
Gulveer joined the alit group of Indian players who won gold in the men’s 5000 meter event in the continental competition with this performance. Earlier, Gopal Saini (1981), Bahadur Prasad (1993) and G. Laxmanan (2017) have won gold medals in this event. A 26 -year -old Atrauli in Uttar Pradesh also won a bronze medal in the 2023 season. However, in the women’s 3000 meter steeplechase, India was somewhat disappointed, where the defending champion Parul Chaudhary had to be satisfied with the silver.
Parun took a time of nine minutes 12.46 seconds and lagged behind Nora Jeruto Tanui (nine minutes 10.46 seconds) of Kazakhstan. Bronze also went to Kazakhstan’s Daisy Jepkami (nine minutes 27.51 seconds). Now the number of medals of India in the competition has become 17 (seven gold, seven silver and three bronze).
Earlier, India’s four times the 100m men relay team was disqualified due to the wrong ‘baton exchange’ during the initial round but Sachin Yadav and Yashveer Singh made it to the finals throw throw of the Asian Athletics Championship with the current Olympic champion Arshad Nadeem of Pakistan.
The quartet of Pranav Pramod Gaurav, Ragul Kumar Ganesh, Manikant Hobalidhar and Amalan Borgohen was excluded from the competition after violating the technical rule 24.7 of World Athletics 24.7, after being found guilty of ‘Baton Exchange’ (giving other player to be convicted) outside the ‘Techover’ area. The Malaysia team was also disqualified for similar violations.
However, the good news for the Indian party was that Sachin and Yashveer reached the final of the 12 men’s javelin throw event. Sachin finished fifth by covering a distance of 79.62 meters, while Yashveer qualified for Saturday final by covering a distance of 76.67 meters.
Nadeem topped it. The player, who was participating in the first competition after winning the gold from 92.97 meters in the Paris Olympics last year, achieved 86.34 meters in the qualifying round.
In other events associated with Indian players, golden winners Jyoti Yaarai and Nitya Gandhe entered their heat with a time of 23.74 seconds and 23.77 seconds respectively in women’s 100m hurdles race.
Animesh Kujur entered the semi -finals with a time of 20.98 seconds in his initial race in the men’s 200 meter event.
At the end of the five events in Nandini Agasara Heptathlon, the number of her points reached 4500 in the race for gold medal. She topped a distance of 6.13 meters in a long jump held this morning.
She is leading from China’s Liu Jingi with 4210 points. This evening, only spear throwing and 800 meter events are yet to be completed.
