Paris 2024 Olympics: Parul Chaudhary, Ankita Dhyani Fail To Qualify For 5000m Finals

India's track and field athletes Parul Chaudhary and Ankita Dhyani failed to qualify for the women's 5000-metre race after finishing in overall 24h and 40th respectively.

Paris (France): Earlier in the day, 2023 Asian Games gold medallists Parul Chaudhary and Ankita Dhyani finished overall 24th and 40th respectively in the heats and couldn't qualify for the final round of women's 5000m race in the ongoing Paris 2024 Olympics here on Friday.

The top eight of both heats- that's 16 athletes have qualified for the final round. Each heat saw 20 athletes competing for the berth in the next round.

Parul clocked the timings of 15:10.68 to finish 14th in the first heat. She missed her national record time of 15 minutes 10.35 seconds by one-third of a second but it wasn't enough to finish in the top eight of heat one and advance to the final. On the other hand, Ankita ended her run in the 20th place, the last, in heat second as she touched the finishing line in 16:19:38 minutes. She was the only athlete to reach the 16-minute mark while others completed the race before that.

Kenya's Faith Kipyegon, Reigning Olympic 1500m champion, topped the qualification round with a time of 14:57.56s, followed by Dutch Sifan Hassan, Tokyo Games gold medallist (14:57.65s), and current 5000m world record holder Gudaf Tsegay of Ethiopia was fifth overall with a time of 14:57.84s.

Parul will next compete in her pet event which is the 3000m steeplechase on Sunday (heat races). Parul had qualified for the 5000m race through the world ranking quota as she could not breach the direct entry time of 14:52.00s. Ankita also qualified for the Olympics through a world ranking quota and she made the cut at the last minute.

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