Abha Khatua set a national record in women's shot put with a big throw of 18.41m during the second day of the National Federation Cup Athletics Competition in Bhubaneswar on Monday. (More Sports News)
Abha, who is representing Maharashtra, was the joint record holder of 18.06m with Manpreet Kaur before this competition. But with her fifth-round throw of 18.41m at the Kalinga Stadium, she became the sole national record holder.
Her effort was well short of the Olympic qualifying mark of 18.80m, which no Indian woman has ever been able to reach. The qualifying window ends on June 30.
Uttar Pradesh's Kiran Baliyan (16.54m) and Delhi's Srishti Vig (15.86m) finished in the second and third positions respectively.
In the men's 200m final, Animesh Kujur of Odisha ran an impressive 20.62 seconds, one-tenth of a second off the two-year-old national record of 20.52 seconds in the name of Amlan Borgohain.
The 28-year-old Abha, who hails from a poor family, started athletics when she was in 7th standard.
Born to a farmer father at Khurshi village near Narayangarh town in West Bengal’s West Midnapur district, Khatua tried out many athletics events before settling for shot put four years ago.
Initially, she dabbled in 100m, 200m, 400m, long jump and javelin. She also participated in the heptathlon in 2017-18 but since she was not good in the high jump (one of the seven events in the heptathlon), she shifted to shot put at the end of 2018 and joined the national camp at Patiala in 2019.
However, 2021 proved to be a tough period in her life as she suffered from COVID-19, chikungunya, and high uric acid and also sustained an injury to her right elbow which affected her career as she could not do well in the National Inter-State.
She had also missed out on the Asian Games after throwing 16.39m for a third-place finish at the National Inter-State Championships in Bhubaneswar, which was the final selection event.
Abha later threw 18.06m to equal Manpreet Kaur’s national record while winning a silver medal in the Asian Championships in Thailand in July and then won the shot put event at the Indian Grand Prix 5 with an effort of 18.02m.
