Hima Das and Dutee Chand: Women win silver on Jakarta track
Hima Das and Dutee Chand went on a silver streak yesterday on the Jakarta track. This event took place on Sunday, 26th August 2018. Hima Das and Dutee Chand won silver medals in the 400m and 100m tracks, respectively.
On the same day, Chinese athlete, Sun Bingtian crashed the Asian Games 100m record at 9.91 seconds. But the two young athletes placed India at the centre-stage of the speed-sport.
Hima Das had recently won the World Junior Championship in Finland. This was her first major senior game. Till three years ago, she was playing football and now the final moments of her race have been imprinted in the minds of may a proud Indian.
Dutee Chand’s achievement of the silver medal was even more dramatic. Dutee admits that she had been nervous. That’s because, after the semis, her coach had told her off for messing up the semis. Her coach’s instructions were that she had to take off still bending and work up the speed while running upright in one smooth motion.
In the semis, she panicked. This resulted in her coming straight too early. Dutee stated,“The starting mistakes I improved in the finals. I ran bending for 30-40 metres and then found acceleration.” She missed out on gold 0.02 seconds. This number may seem small to the untrained eye. But when in the context of a 100m race, it’s quite a large number.
“I ran the last 30 metres almost with my eyes closed, I was pushing myself that much. At the end, I wasn’t sure if I even had the medal, so I didn’t grab a flag. Once they showed it on the screen, I felt confident enough to celebrate,” she said.
Four years ago, she was cast away from the Asian Games due to hyperandrogenism. “This was like an Olympics for me, because I missed the Asiad last time. But I’m happy everyone who said negative things about me will be happy I won for the country now,” she said.
Both Hima Das and Dutee Chand have served their country well. They went forward on national duty and brought home two shining silver medals.
