Odisha and India Sprint star Dutee Chand blazed the track to retain the women 100m gold in the Indian Grand Prix II at the Netaji Subhas National Institute of Sports in Patiala today. Chand clocked 11.44 seconds, an improvement on the 11.51 seconds she had taken to grab the gold at the Indian GP-I last week.

Chand is hoping to qualify for the Olympic Games by meeting the 11.15 seconds standard but will also keep an eye on conforming a place among the 56 starters in Tokyo on the basis of her ranking as World No 33 at the moment.

Odisha secured another medal in the Indian GP-II as male sprinter Amiya Kumar Mallick settled for silver with a time of 10.74 seconds. This was an improvement for Mallick, who had bagged bronze, clocking 10.89 seconds.

In the women 200m event, Hima Das (Assam) made light of the absence of much competition to win in 23.31 seconds. She has run faster only three times, twice in 2018 when she had times of 23.10 in the National Inter-State Athletics Championships in Guwahati and 23.22 in Gliwic Grand Prix in Poland and once in 2019 when she clocked 23.25 in Velká cena Tábora in Tabor, Czech Republic.
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PHOTO: Undated file picture of Odisha sprinter Dutee Chand.