Hima Das First Indian Woman to Win Gold in World U-20 Athletics Championship

India’s North East state Assam’s Sprinter Hima Das has scripted history by becoming the first Indian woman athlete to win a gold medal at the world level competition, as she clinched the top spot in the women’s 400m final race in the IAAF World Under-20 Athletics Championships.
The 18-year-old Das, a pre-tournament favourite, clocked 51.46s to win the gold, which triggered a wild celebration at the Indian camp. Thought, this was not her personal best as she had clocked 51.13 last month in Guwahti at the National Inter State Championships. No woman before Das has won a gold medal in a World Championship at any leve l, be it youth, junior or senior. She is also the first Indian — men or women — to have won a gold in a track event at the world level.
“I am very happy to win the gold in the World Junior Championships. I want to thank all the Indians back home and also those who were here cheering for me,” she said to the Media after the race.
Indian PM Narendra Modi congratulated Hima Das on winning gold in Under 20 World Track and Field championship. Bollywood actors like Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar and Farhan Akhtar tweeted and congratulated Hima Das for scripting history.
It was not an unexpected gold for Hima, at the World Under -20 Track and Field Championships. She went to Tampere, Finland, as a favourite, having clocked her best 51.13 seconds at the Inter-State Championships, her timing being better than that of her nearest competitor, Symone Mason of the US, whose personal best was 51.53 seconds.
Hima, the last of five children of a rice-growing farmer in Kandhulimari village, about five kilometers from Dhing town of Nowgaon district in central Assam, has a story to narrate like all poor children coming from rural India. What’s more important about her is that she took to serious running two years ago when she also had the feel of running spikes.
She spent her childhood playing football and cricket with boys in the neighbourhood. Seeing her running on the paddy and dusty football fields, two years ago, she saw the athlete’s spikes when she came under the guidance of Nipon Das, the athletics coach with the Directorate of Sports and Youth Welfare.
Now she joins the illustrious company of star javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, who won a gold in Poland in the last edition in 2016 in a world record effort. In fact, Das is the first Indian track athelete to have won a medal in the history of this competition. Das was a favourite to win gold as she is the U-20 season leader in this quarter-mile event. Das clocked an Indian U-20 record of 51.32 seconds to finish sixth in the Commonwealth Games 400m final in Gold Coast in April.
The other two Indians to win medals at the World Juniors were women athletes, both discus throwers and bronze medallists — Seema Punia at the Kingston World Junior Chamionships in 2002 and Navjeet Kaur Dhillon at the Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, US, in 2014.
> Pratyusha Mukherjee, Kolkata, India
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