Gold for Dutee Chand at Taiwan, Olympic cut still a few seconds away

After smashing the 18 year old national record at the IAAF World Challenge in Beijing with her relay teammates, Dutee Chand has put another feather in her cap. The sprinter has clinched the gold medal at in the women's 100 m sprint event at the the Taiwan Open Athletics Championship. And what's more, she came straight from Beijing into the Taiwan Championship, ran the 100m heats within an hour of landing, and then five hours later ran the finals, notching up a win.

Dutee however failed to make the Olympic cut in this qualifier; her time of 11.50 seconds falling short of the 11.32 second qualifying mark. She will be seen running in the women's 4x100m relay finals tomorrow.

Also read: Dipa Karmakar becomes the first Indian woman gymnast to qualify for Olympics

 Chand has been lucking out as far as booking a berth for Rio is concerned. Even at Beijing, in spite of the fact that her name was on the list, she was told to withdraw at the last minute from the individual 100m sprint event. Last month she missed the Rio qualifying standards in the Federation Cup National Athletics Championships in New Delhi with a timing of 11.33 secs. Now Dutee has two more events to try for Olympics -- one each in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan -- next month, besides the National Inter-State Championships in Hyderabad, also next month.

Also read: Saina Nehwal, Jwala Gutta plus five make the Olympics cut

Meanwhile, Long jumper Ankit Sharma vaulted 7.67m on his last attempt, successfully clinched a gold medal.

Feature Image Courtesy: ndtv.com