Paris 2024 Olympics: What is Ankita Dhyani's personal best in 5000m?
India's Ankita Dhyani will be a medal contender in the 5000m event at the Paris Olympics 2024. The first round of the women's 5000m will take place on August 2 with the final taking place on August 6.
Ankita achieved her personal best timing of 15:28.08 at the Track Fest in California in May this year, while finishing 10th in the event.
Meanwhile, she won the silver medal in the 3000m event in the Asian Indoor Athletics Championships at the Aftab e Enghelab Sports Complex in Tehran in February.
In May 2024, Ankita won the bronze and silver medals in the 5000m events at the Los Angeles Grand Prix Music City Track Carnival. She finished 15th in the Portland Track Festival.
Then, the talented runner finished with a gold medal in the Inter-State Athletics Championships 2024 with a timing of 16:10.31. Apart from the 5000m event, she participated in the 10000m and Cross Country events in 2024 as well.
Although her performances could not help her gain an automatic qualification, Ankita secured qualification through the world rankings after multiple withdrawals and injury to long jumper M Sreeshankar. She was ranked 42nd in the Road to Paris rankings, which was the cutoff rank for the event.
Past performances of Ankita Dhyani
Ankita Dhyani came into the national reckoning by winning a gold medal in the 1500m and 5000m at the Khelo India Youth Games in the 2019 and 2020 events. In the same categories, she won the yellow metal at the Junior National Championships in Guwahati. Her performance in the 5000m was noteworthy, as she clocked 16:21.19 to set a junior national record.
She won gold in both 1500m and 5000m at the Federation Cup Junior U20 Athletics Championships at Sangrur, Punjab in 2023.
The Uttarakhand-born athlete secured a fifth-place finish in the 5000m event in the Asian Games 2023 with a timing of 15:33.03, which was her personal best at that time.
It will be interesting to see whether Ankita Dhyani can continue her fine form in the Paris Olympics.