Star sprinter Dutee Chand smashed her own national record, clocking 11.22 seconds, in the women’s 100m semifinals at the 59th National Open Athletics Championships in Ranchi yesterday. The 23-year-old surpassed her previous timing of 11.26 second which she had set at the Asian Championships in April this year. Dutee later clocked 11.25 seconds in the final to claim the gold, leaving Archana Suseendran and Himashree Roy behind.
At Doha, she had managed 11.48 to finish a disappointing seventh in her heats. “A couple of days ago, I had the wrong belief that my body was tired at the end of the season. I recovered well to be able to break the last national mark twice this evening,” Dutee said.