Challenge ahead for Assam's Hima Das as she moves to 200m from 400m before Tokyo Olympics

GUWAHATI: Assam's Hima Das has been shifted to 200m category from 400m ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. While 400m has been her strength, Das will have to do extremely well for her to qualify for the 200m Tokyo Olympics.

Her personal best in 200m is 23.10 seconds but the Entry Standard for the Games has been set at 22.80 seconds.

"It does not make sense to focus on the 400 metres this season because she does not have the basic conditioning level she needs. And in the 400 metres you need a decent amount of endurance and considering that now there is only four and a half months till the end of the qualifying period for the Olympics, we didn't want to make similar mistakes of last season and we didn't want to force anything. If we put her into 400 metre competitions again there would be a lot of pressure. She is still young and and we don't want to rush anything," Athletics Federation of India's high-performance director Volker Herrmann said, reported The Indian Express.

The entire team is now working on her speed and helping her improve endurance, Herrmann said.

About Hima Das

Hima Das (born 9 January 2000), nicknamed the Dhing Express, is an Indian sprint runner from the state of Assam. She holds the current Indian national record in 400 metres 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.

Hima Das was born at Kandhulimari village, near the town of Dhing in the state of Assam to Ronjit and Jonali Das. Her parents are farmers by profession. She is the youngest of five children.[5] She attended the Dhing Public high School and was initially interested in playing football. She played football with the boys at her school and had always wanted to pursue a career in football. However, she did not see any prospects for herself in women's football in India. Later, upon advice from a school physical education teacher, Shamsul Hoque, she changed to sprint running.

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