Rupal Choudhary gave his best performance twice in the championship.© Twitter
Rupal Choudhary created history by becoming the first Indian athlete to win two medals at the World U20 Athletics Championships as she won the 4x400m relay silver along with a bronze medal in the women’s 400m. Hailing from a family of modest means, her father being a small farmer in Shahpur Jainpur village in Meerut district of UP, the 17-year-old has run an incredible four 400 meters in just three days. Rupal clocked 51.85 to finish third on Thursday night behind Yemi Mary John (51.50) of Great Britain and Damaris Mutunga (51.71) of Kenya.
On Tuesday, she won a silver as part of the 4x400m relay quartet, finishing second behind the United States with an Asian junior record time of 3:17.76.
On the same day, she ran her individual 400m first round heats before advancing to the semifinals on Wednesday and the finals on Thursday.
She ran her personal best time in the championship twice, first in the semi-finals with 52.27 seconds better than the final.
Earlier this year, Rupal defeated Karnataka’s pre-race favorite Priya Mohan to win the women’s 400m gold medal at the National Under-20 Federation Cup Athletics Championships here on Friday.
Rupal is the second Indian to win a medal in the women’s 400m after Hima Das won the historic gold medal with a time of 51.46 at the 2018 edition of the championships in Finland.
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Olympic champion javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra was the first Indian to win gold at the 2016 Championships in Poland.
Rupal’s bronze is India’s ninth medal overall from the championship, formerly known as the World Junior Championships. In the previous edition in Nairobi in 2021, India had won three medals – 2 silver, 1 bronze. PTI PDS KHS KHS
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