New Taipei City, June 6 (IANS) India’s women’s 4x100m relay team produced a commanding performance to clinch the gold medal and set a new meet record at the New Taipei City Athletics Open, a World Athletics Continental Tour Silver event, on Saturday.

The quartet of Srabani Nanda, S.S. Sneha, Sudeshna Shivankar, and Tamanna clocked an impressive 44.07 seconds at the Banqiao Stadium in Taiwan to finish atop the podium. In the process, the Indian team shattered the previous meet record and secured victory by a comfortable margin of 0.31 seconds over Vietnam, which finished second.

Apart from the relay triumph, India also enjoyed success in the field events through promising long jumper Shaili Singh, who secured the gold medal in the women’s long jump competition. Shaili registered a best effort of 6.24 metres to finish ahead of her rivals and add another medal to India’s tally at the meet.

India’s Tejas Shirse also impressed on the track, claiming the silver medal in the men’s 110m hurdles. Shirse delivered a strong performance against a competitive field to finish among the top two and continue his encouraging progress in the sprint hurdles discipline.

Tejas previously also won gold in the national championships. His gold-winning time was 13.50 seconds. He improved his own meet record of 13.61 secs but missed out on winning a CWG berth. The qualification time was 13.39 secs.

Earlier, the Indian women’s relay team also performed well in the U20 Athletics Championships, where India won a record 19 medals. The women’s 4x100m relay also won silver with a time of 45.05 seconds. The team members were Kajal Hirabhai Vaja, Bhavana G, Aarti, and Nipam.

While the Indian men’s 4x400m relay team also improved the meet record of 3:07.38, it finished third with a time of 3:05.54. The team members were Piyush Raj, Sayed Sabeer, Ranjith Kumar S, and Mohammed Ashfaq.

–IANS

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