Seema Antil breaks two decade old record and gets Olympic ticket

Discus thrower Seema Antil of Uttar Pradesh broke a two-decade-old record with a throw of 63.72m on the last day of the 60th National Inter-State Athletics Championships to win the Tokyo Olympics ticket. With this, Seema became the 12th individual Indian athlete to qualify for Tokyo. .

Seema had reached Patiala from Belarus in the early hours of June 27 to participate in the competition and achieved this mark on her fourth throw out of five valid throws. Seema had thrown a discus throw of 63.18m in her third attempt and was close to the Olympic qualifying mark of 63.50m. Her third attempt set a new meet record but her fourth attempt was strong enough to cross the Olympic mark.

Seema was participating in her third event after the 2018 Asian Games. She had thrown the discus in the Federation Cup held here in March for 62.64 meters and on June 25 in Minsk, could only catch a distance of 58.62 meters. He secured his fourth Olympic Games ticket here on his fourth attempt.