Asian Athletics C’ships: Indian medal tally moves to 14 as Avinash, Jyothi secure gold

GUMI (South Korea): The Indian contingent took their medal count at the Asian Athletics Championships 2025 to 14 as they secured six, consisting of three gold, two silver and a bronze on Thursday, with gold medalists including Olympians Avinash Sable and Jyothi Yarraji.

At Gumi on Thursday, Sable and Jyothi secured the gold medal in the men’s 3000 m steeplechase and women’s 100 m hurdle events, respectively, while the Indian women’s team also defended their 4x400m relay title, as per Olympics.com.

Proud Moment for !

Heartiest congratulations to our TOPS core athlete @avinash3000m for winning gold in the 3000m steeplechase at the Asian Athletics Championships 2025 in Gumi. pic.twitter.com/aIwYdDXOQk

— Dr Mansukh Mandaviya (@mansukhmandviya) May 30, 2025

Sable, who secured the silver medal in the Asian Athletics Championships 2019, secured the gold six years later with a season’s best timing of 8:20.92, with the rest of the podium completed by Japan’s Yutaro Niinae (8:24.41) and Qatar’s Zakaria Elahlaami (8:27.12).

The current Asian Games champion Sable is the first Indian to secure a 3000 m men’s steeplechase gold at the Asian Athletics Championships after 36 years, with the first being the Arjuna Award recipient Deena Ram back in 1989.

Jyothi backed the second gold of the day, successfully defending her women’s 100m hurdles title by clocking a new championship record time of 12.96 seconds. The second and third spots were taken by Japan’s Yumi Tanaka and China’s Wu Yanni with the times of 13.07 (.061) and 13.07(.068), respectively.

The Indian quartet of Jisna Mathew, Rupal Chaudhary, Kunja Rajitha and Subha Venkatesan bagged the women’s 4x400m relay gold with season-best timings of 3:34.18.

This was India’s first gold medal in the category since 2013 when the quartet of Nirmala Sheoran, Tintu Luka, Anu Mariam Jose and Poovamma Raju Machettira finished on top of the podium in Balewadi, Pune.

Rupal and Subha helped India in defending their mixed 4x400m relay team title on Wednesday. However, the men’s 4x400m relay team bagged a silver after the grouping of Jay Kumar, Dharmveer Choudhary, Manu Thekkinalil Saji, and Vishal TK clocked the timing of 3:03.67., The gold medal went to Qatar with timings of 3:03.5,2 and China landed the bronze after clocking 3:03.73.

In the women’s long jump event, two Indian athletes made it to the podium as Asian Games runners-up Ancy Sojan (6.33 m) got the silver medal and the Asian Championships silver medalist Shaili Singh (6.30 m) got the bronze. Ancy’s third jump gave her the medal, while Shaili’s first attempt gave her the bronze. Iran’s Reihaneh Mobini Arani took home the gold with a 6.40 m jump. (ANI)