Tokyo Olympics: Discus thrower Seema Punia qualifies with 63.72m throw at Inter-State Championships

Seema Antil qualified for the discus throw competition in the Olympic Games in Tokyo with a 63.72m throw on the final day of the Fast&Up 60th National Inter-State Athletics Championships at the Netaji Subhas National Institute of Sports on Tuesday. She became the 12th individual Indian athlete to qualify for Tokyo2020.

The 37-year-old will be taking part in her fourth Olympics, thus tying the record held by tennis star Sania Mirza and former sprinter Shiny Wilson for most appearances by an Indian woman at the Games.

The Olympic qualification for women’s discus throw is 63.50m.

Seema is the second Indian to qualify for this year’s Olympics in discus throw after Kamalpreet Kaur who managed a national record throw of 65.06m at the Federation Cup in March. Kamalpreet did not start on Tuesday, although her name was in the list of participants.

Seema Poonia earns #Tokyo2020 qualification with an effort of 63.70m (OQ mark 63.50m) in women discus throw on the last day of Inter State meet in #Patiala

Congrats Seema! pic.twitter.com/RAlFhNaDuj

— Athletics Federation of India (@afiindia) June 29, 2021

Seema won gold in the 2014 Incheon Asian Games and Silver in the 2018 Asiad in Jakarta. She has also won two silvers and one gold in the Commonwealth Games.

Meanwhile, the Indian women’s 4x100m relay team consisting of Dutee Chand, AT Dhaneshwari, S Dhanalakshmi and Archana Suseendran failed to breach the qualification time for the Olympics. The injured Hima Das did not take part in the race.

Hima, however, went on to participate in the women’s 200m event, which was the last of the day. She finished a lowly sixth with a time of 25.03 seconds.