Pilavullakandi Thekkeparambil Usha is an Indian sports administrator and retired track and field athlete. Usha was born in Koothali near Perambra in Kozhikode district, Kerala. She grew up in Payyoli. Usha has been associated with Indian athletics since 1979. She has won 4 gold medals and 7 silver medals in the Asian Games. She is often associated as the "Queen of Indian track and field".
Vera Ivanovna Popkova was a Soviet track and field athlete who competed in the sprints. She had personal bests of 11.3 seconds for the 100 metres and 23.0 seconds for the 200 metres. Over her career, she won eight individual national titles in the sprints.
Chitra Kulathummuriyil Soman was born in Kottayam, Kerala. Her father is from Kottayam and her mother is from kanjirappally, Kerala. She is an Indian sprinter who specializes in the 400 metres. Soman finished seventh in 4 x 400 metres relay at the 2004 Summer Olympics, together with teammates Satti Geetha, K. M. Beenamol and Rajwinder Kaur. This team, only with Manjeet Kaur running instead of Geetha, had set a national record of 3:26.89 minutes in the heat. Soman also ran for the Indian team who won a silver medal at the 2006 Commonwealth Games. In 2007, Chitra Soman won gold medal in 400m race at Asian Grand Prix series held at Guwahati on 23 June 2007 and at Puen held on 27 June 2007. She also led Indian women 4 × 400 m relay team to Gold in Asian Athletics Championship held at Amman in July 2007. In 2008, Chitra again showed her class by leading another win for Indian women 4 × 400 m relay team in 3rd Asian Indoor Championship in Athletics held in Doha in Feb 2008.
Manathoor Devasia Valsamma is a retired Indian athlete. She was the second Indian woman to win an individual gold medal at the Asian Games and the first to win it on Indian soil.
Deshabandu Kobala Vithanage Damayanthi Dharsha-Kobalavithanage is a retired Sri Lankan athlete who competed in the 200 and 400 metres race events. She is the current Asian Games record holder in women's 200m event and current Asian Athletics Championships record holder in women's 400m event as well as national record holder in women's 400m. She is regarded as one of the greatest track and field athletes to have represented Sri Lanka at international level alongside her teammate Susanthika Jayasinghe. She is also regarded as the most successful Sri Lankan athlete at the Asian Games with a medal haul of four medals including three gold medals and became the first Sri Lankan female athlete to clinch three Asian Games gold medals. She represented Sri Lanka at the Olympics on three occasions in 1992, 2000 and 2004. She also represented Sri Lanka at the Commonwealth Games on four occasions in 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2006 as well as at the South Asian Games on four occasions.
Ruqaya Al-Ghasra, is a Bahraini athlete. She was one of the first women to represent Bahrain at the Olympic Games, by taking part in the women's 100 metres sprint at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.
Olga Tereshkova is a Kazakhstani former sprinter who specialized in the 400 metres.
Manjeet Kaur is an Indian sprint athlete from Punjab who specializes in 400 metres. She held the 400 m National record of 51.05 seconds set at the National Circuit Athletic Meet held in Chennai on 16 June 2004. She broke the previous record held by K. M. Beenamol since November 2001. In doing so, she passed the qualifying mark for the 2004 Athens Olympics. She along with Chitra K. Soman, Rajwinder Kaur and K. M. Beenamol form the team that holds the current National record in 4 x 400 metres relay.
Tintu Luka is an Indian track and field athlete, who predominantly competes in the middle-distance running events. Born in Valathode, Kerala, she is the national record holder in the women's 800 metres. Luka represented India at the 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics. In addition to being the 2015 Asian Champion in the 800 meters, she has won a total of six medals at the Asian Athletics Championships.
Jauna Murmu is an Indian sprint runner and hurdler from Odisha who specializes in 400 metres and 400 metres hurdles. She belongs to Mayurbhanj District of Odisha. She has received coaching from Arun Kumar Das and Subash Chandra Dasmohapatra. She is presently employed by with ONGC
Srabani Nanda is an Indian woman sprint runner athlete from Odisha specialized in 4x100m relay, 100 metre and 200 metre sprint events. She belongs to Kandhamal District of Odisha. She trains in Kingston, Jamaica with MVP Track & Field Club under coach Stephen Francis.
In India, the sport of athletics was introduced during the period of the British Raj. The sport is governed at national level by the Athletics Federation of India, which was formed in 1946. Despite its large population, few Indian athletes have won a medal in a global or major championship. This began to change in the 21st century, when Indians started taking greater interest in athletics more generally and improved facilities for the sport began to be built at a local level. At a continental level, it has been among the more successful Asian nations, though some distance behind China and Japan.
Machettira Raju Poovamma is an Indian sprinter who specialises in the 400 metres distance. As a member of the Indian 4 × 400 m relay teams she participated in the 2016 Olympics and won gold medals at the 2014 and 2018 Asian Games and 2013 and 2017 Asian championships; individually she won a silver medal in 2013 and a bronze in 2014 at those competitions. She received the Arjuna Award in 2015 for her contributions to athletics.
Dutee Chand is an Indian professional sprinter and current national champion in the women's 100 metres event. Chand is the first Indian to win a gold medal in 100 m race in a global competition in 2016 in the Rio Games. She is the third Indian woman to ever qualify for the Women's 100 metres event at the Summer Olympic Games. In 2018, Chand clinched silver in women's 100m at the Jakarta Asian Games. It was India's first medal in this event since 1998. Moreover, In 2019, she became the first Indian sprinter to win gold at the Universiade, clocking 11.32 seconds in the 100 m race.
Salwa Eid Naser is a Nigerian-born Bahraini sprinter who specialises in the 400 metres. She was the 2019 World champion with the third fastest time in history of 48.14 seconds, becoming the youngest-ever champion in the event and also the first woman representing an Asian nation to win that event at a World Championships. The mark places her only behind contested results of Marita Koch and Jarmila Kratochvílová. Over the distance, at only 19, Naser was the 2017 World silver medallist. She has also won, as a member of Bahraini mixed-gender 4x400 m relay team, the 2019 World Championships bronze medal.
Hiromi "Kumi" Isozaki is a Japanese former track and field athlete who competed in sprinting events from 100 metres to 400 metres. She won four gold medals at the 1982 Asian Games, which she set three games records. She later won 400 m bronze at the 1986 Asian Games and a 200 metres bronze at the 1987 Asian Athletics Championships. She was also a three-time silver medallist in the 4×400 metres relay at continental level.
Man Kaur was an Indian track-and-field athlete. She holds the world records in the Over-100 years old categories for a variety of events. At the age of 103, she was given the Nari Shakti Puraskar award by the President of India.
Hiriyur Manjunath Jyothi is an Indian sprinter and Commonwealth games medalist. She competes in the 100 metres, 200 metres, and 4×100 metres relay categories. She is a national champion or former national champion in each of the three events, with personal best timings of 11.3, 23.42, and 43.42 seconds in the 100 metres, 200 metres, and 4×100 metres relay, respectively. Her personal best times in all three events were after her withdrawal from professional competition for three years to become a mother. A Canara Bank employee, Jyothi is married to the former sprinter S. Srinivas, who is also her personal coach. Despite wanting to win a medal at Asian games, she couldn’t continue sprint due to persistent achilles injury. She ended up her career in 2017 with a gold at the open nationals, Chennai.
Anu Raghavan is an Indian sprinter who competes in the 400 metres and 400 metres hurdles events.
Hima Das, nicknamed Dhing Express, is an Indian sprinter from the state of Assam. She holds the current Indian national record in 400 meters with a timing of 50.79 s that she clocked at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia. She is the first Indian athlete to win a gold medal in a track event at the IAAF World U20 Championships. She was appointed as a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) in Assam Police under the state's Integrated Sport Policy.
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