India's U20 Worlds Begin on a High: Three Finals Berths, Mixed Track Results

India made a promising start to the World Athletics U20 Championships, with three athletes advancing to their respective finals on the opening day of competition. Javelin throwers Ashish Yadav and T Dharanidharan, along with discus thrower Amanat Kamboj, all booked their spots in the summit clashes.

Yadav was the standout performer, leading the men's javelin Group A qualifiers with a throw of 69.87m to finish overall runner-up. Only South African favourite Jan-Hendrik Heymans finished ahead of him, having topped Group B with a massive 76.02m effort — the sole athlete to cross the automatic qualification threshold of 72.50m. Yadav, 19, arrives at the tournament in good form, carrying a season's and personal-best throw of 74.49m.

Dharanidharan also punched his ticket to the final, though it was a much closer call. A fifth-place finish in Group B with a throw of 68.07m was just enough to see him scrape into the final as the 12th and last qualifier — the cutoff being either the automatic mark of 72.50m or a place among the top 12 overall. The final will be contested on Friday. Notably, India's own Neeraj Chopra still holds the championship's all-time record in this event, having launched the javelin to 86.48m at the 2016 edition in Bydgoszcz, Poland.

There was good news on the women's side too, with Amanat Kamboj producing a season's-best 52.58m in the discus to place sixth in her qualification group. That effort was enough to grab the final qualifying berth — 12th overall — for the summit clash later that night. China dominated the qualifiers, with Su Yixin (58.06m) and Ma Chenyi (57.72m) finishing first and second respectively across both groups. As with the men's event, athletes needed to either clear the automatic mark of 55m or finish among the top 12 to advance.

In the men's 800m, the results were mixed for India. Mogali Venkatram advanced to the semifinals after clocking 1:52.81 to finish third in his heat, while Uwin Anand's campaign ended at the first hurdle — a seventh-place finish in his heat (1:52.37) leaving him 30th overall. Uganda's Shafeck Murungi was the quickest of the day, clocking a personal-best 1:46.64 across the five heats. Progression to the semifinals was reserved for the top five finishers in each heat, plus the next two fastest overall.

The Indian challenge in the mixed 4x400m relay, however, came to an early end. The team of Piyush Raj, Tahura Khatun, Sayed Sabeer and Thiya Arumugam clocked 3:22.85 to finish fourth in their heat, placing 11th overall across the three heats — outside the qualification zone. The United States set the pace in the opening round with a time of 3:18.26, with the top three teams from each heat progressing to the final.

The result marks a step down for India in this event, which had produced a landmark performance at the 2022 edition of the championships. That team had won a historic silver medal, clocking an Asian U20 record of 3:17.76 seconds — a time that still ranks second on the all-time world U20 list.