Dhanalakshmi beats Hima Das, breaks Usha’s 200m mark

TIL Desk Sports/ Tamil Nadu’s S Dhanalakshmi, who had stunned Dutee Chand in the 100 metres final, beat Hima Das, another star athlete, in the 200 metres semi-final heats, clocking a new meet record time of 23.26 seconds, in the Federation Cup National Senior Athletics Championships, in Patiala, on Thursday.

Her victory over Assam’s Hima Das in the semi-final heat lifted her to the top 10 in the Indian all-time list. Archana Suseendran (Tamil Nadu) won her semi-final heat in 24.07 seconds to raise expectations of an interesting final. It must be stated that both Das (23.10) and Suseendran (23.18) have faster times than the one blazed by Dhanalakshmi on Thursday.

Dhanalakshmi’s time bettered P T Usha’s long-standing meet record of 23.30 seconds, set in Chennai in 1998.Having run 24.05 seconds when finishing third in the Federation Cup in Patiala two years ago, Dhanalakshmi recorded a 23.47s in the Tamil Nadu State Championships in Sivakasi on January 24, thus making it the second time she was clocking in under 23.50 seconds.