A determined Dutee Chand dashed to grab a historic place in the Rio Olympics by smashing her own national record on way to winning the 100 metres heats at the 26th G. Kosanov Memorial Athletics Meet in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on Saturday.
The 20-year-old clocked 11.30 seconds ahead of Anasstasia Tulapina (11.67 secs) of Kazakhstan and Mariya Mokrova (11.69) of Ukraine to run under the Olympic qualification mark of 11.32 seconds. That also bettered her own national record of 11.33 secs set at the Federation Cup in Delhi in April, when she missed the Olympic qualifying mark by one hundredth of a second.
Saturday’s scorching run made Dutee chand the first Indian woman to make the Olympics after qualifying times were introduced in 2000. Earlier, athletes used to make the Games on quota places.