Asian Games 2018, Athletics: Swapna Barman gets the gold in heptathlon

India’s Swapna Barman won India’s fifth athletics gold in heptathlon at the ongoing Asian Games on Wednesday.

Purnima Hembram, the other Indian in the fray, finished fourth.

During the two-day long event, the 21-year-old had maintained her position among the medal contenders.

In the final event, the 800m, Barman finished with a time of 2:21.13, earning 803 points, enough for her to win the event.

In the first event on Tuesday morning, the 100m race, she had finished fifth with a total of 981 points. But she raced to top the charts after the second event, the high jump which is her pet event.

Competing with a taped chin due to a toothache which was hurting her, she cleared a distance of 1.82m in her first attempt with consummate ease to seal her lead. She had needed two attempts to clear 1.70m. But after that, she had sailed through clearing 1.73m, 1.76m, 1.79m and 1.82m in her first attempts.

After two events of the heptathlon, Barman was in the overall lead, while Purnima Hembram is third.

In the shot put, she improved her personal best to 12.69 and retained her overall lead. However, in the last event on Tuesday, the 200m race, Barman finished just outside 26.00 and dropped to second place in overall standings with 3481 aggregate points while Purnima Hembram was third with 3424.

In the long jump on Wednesday morning, Barman and Hembram recorded 5.82m and 5.85m respectively in their first jump.

But Barman had a near perfect second attempt as she recorded an impressive 6.05m timing her jump perfectly off the white board.

She still had the overall lead going into the javelin throw which she consolidated with an incredible first throw of 50.63m – a personal best.

However, Hembram slipped out of bronze-medal position after Japan’s Yuki Yamasaki bettered the Indian’s 45.48m effort with 46.48m in her final attempt.