First international tournament, medal, travel will always be special: Bapi Hansda

Bapi Hansda shone brightly on the final day of action at the Asian Youth Athletics Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on Sunday as former U-18 world no.1 won a historic silver in the men's 400m hurdles event with a time that broke the previous Championship Record.

Mohammad Reyan Basha also won silver in the boys' medley relay event.

What made the feat even more special was the fact that Bapi clocked a time of 51.38s, easily his personal best. His timing was also better than the previous Championship Record of 51.96s. In the earlier editions of the tournament, Bapi's timing in the final would have been good enough to secure gold. This was only the 5th time ever that Bapi was running in the 400m hurdles event and just his third competition. In spite of competing abroad for the first time and running in the unfavourable lane 8, Bapi showed tremendous skill and composure to improve on his personal best and become the first Indian ever to win silver in the event.

After the final, Bapi said, "This was my first major international competition. I am very happy that I won silver. To get it with a personal best was even more satisfying. I hope to keep improving in the future. Before the race, I was a little nervous as I had finished third in the heats. But before the race, the coach took me aside during the warm-ups and calmed me down. I felt pretty good after that and my mind was in a good space."

Qatar's Mahamat Abakar won gold in the event with a time of 50.91s, while Sri Lanka's Kuda Liyanage won bronze, clocking 51.40s.

Martin Owens, Head Coach - Odisha Reliance High-Performance Centre was elated at Bapi's performance. "I'm very proud of Bapi. It was a great effort by him to clock his personal best in a very tough and competitive field that saw a new championship record being set. He will take a lot of confidence from this win and we will look to build on this in the upcoming months."

Coach Owens also had words of praise for the medley relay team. "The team's execution and teamwork on the track was super smooth and clinical. Their timing was impressive and to win silver in this competition is a quality achievement."

In four previous editions of the tournament, India's best showing in the 400m hurdles event was a bronze medal won by Murad Sirman in the previous edition in 2022. (ANI)

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