As majority of the athletes struggled to overcome the early season blues, Piyush Raj (Bihar) and Sahil Malik (Uttarakhand) came up with sizzling performances in boys under-20 category in the Indian Open 400m meet at the LNCPE Athletics stadium on Saturday.
Piyush (47.11) and Sahil (47.28s) came first and second respectively and punched their tickets to the World Under-20 athletics championships by coming under the qualifying mark of 47.40s.
Piyush reserved his energy for the final after finishing the qualifying race with a modest timing of 48.23. However, in the final, Piyush came up with a dizzying run at the second curve and motored past Sahil to finish first.
Published – March 21, 2026 09:49 pm IST