Thursday was the sixth day of athletics at the Asian Games in Nagoya, and two results stood out from a long programme at Paloma Mizuho Stadium. Bahrain's mixed 4x400m relay quartet won gold in a Games record of 3:12.87, and India's Seema Kumari took bronze in the women's 10,000m in 32:50.05 — the country's first Asian Games medal in the event in 16 years.
India's relay team of Machettira Poovamma, Vishal Thennarasu, Ramraj Vithya and Thekkinalil Manu took silver in 3:14.46, successfully defending the colour of medal the same quartet's predecessors won at the previous Games. Vietnam claimed bronze in 3:14.54, finishing eight hundredths of a second behind the Indian team after a tight closing leg.
Kumari's bronze carried its own weight in India, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised her "endurance, discipline and years of hard work" in a message posted after the race. The 10,000m had not produced an Indian Asian Games medal in 16 years, making Thursday's run one of the more significant results of the Games for the country's athletics programme, even set against the higher-profile relay medal on the same evening.
In the sprints, Thailand's Puripol Boonson opened his 100m campaign with a season's best of 9.95 seconds in the heats. Boonson became the first Southeast Asian sprinter to break 10 seconds when he ran 9.94 at last year's SEA Games in Bangkok, and arrives in Nagoya looking to improve on the silver he won at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou. India's Animesh Kujur (10.36) and national record holder Gurindervir Singh (10.38) both advanced to the semi-finals from the same heats.
The results add to a Games that had already produced one distance-running headline this week, when 19-year-old Shi Shengji led a Chinese sweep of both race walks on the opening day. Athletics continues in Nagoya through 29 September, with the men's and women's marathons among the closing events of a 50-event programme Running Lookout previewed before racing began.