Bhubaneswar: Odisha athlete Astik Pradhan and his teammates gave India its first gold medal on Day 1 of the Asian U-23 Athletics Championships being held in Ordos, China.
Astik, Sandra Mol Sabu, Setu Mishra and Shravani Sangle beat off the strong challenge of China’s quartet to emerge winners in the Mixed Relay team event in an impressive time of 3 minutes 18.64 seconds.
The Chinese team finished the race in 3:18.74.
Astik ran the opening leg, followed by Sabu, Setu and Shravani.
In a scintillating finish, Shravani made up a big deficit to overtake Chinese runner Yingying Huang in the last 10-15 metres and seal victory.