KIYG 2025: Medal hat-tricks for Rajasthan's Harshita Jakhar and Bihar's Suhani Kumari in Cycling

New Delhi, May 7 (IANS) Harshita Jakhar achieved a golden hat-trick at the Khelo India Youth Games 2025 cycling events, being held at the Velodrome, Indira Gandhi Stadium, here. In her debut participation itself, the 18-year-old from Rajasthan has made the KIYG a memorable one for herself.

She won the gold on Wednesday in the 2km Individual Pursuit event, recording a time of 02:35.178. The silver medalist – Bhumika of Haryana registered time of 02:41.621.

“Since I’m transitioning to the senior event, the competition hasn’t been too tough for me to be honest. However, the competitors at the Khelo India games are really good. It has turned out to be a perfect practice platform for me,” Harshita, who is a part of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports’ Target Asian Games Group (TAGG) program, told SAI Media.

The bronze medal in the 2km Individual Pursuit event, meanwhile, belonged to Suhani Kumari of Bihar. This was incidentally also Suhani’s third medal in the cycling events – having won silver earlier in the 7.5km Scratch Race as well as a team silver in the girls’ sprint.

“I have enjoyed playing here. The tournament has been very well organised and I have tried my best in inspiring Bihar to bag more medals, through my feat this time,” mentioned the 18-year-old Suhani, currently a trainee of Sports Authority of India National Centre of Excellence (NCOE) Patiala.

Harshita’s cousin brother Aditya meanwhile bagged gold in the 200m boys’ sprint event and in the process, clinched his 2nd gold of KIYG 2025. He earlier won the yellow metal in the 1km Time Trial event.

Results

Boys

3km Individual Pursuit: 1. Sitaram Beniwal (Rajasthan) 03:36.607; 2. Siddhesh Sarjerao Ghorpade (Maharashtra) 03:37.778; 3. Mahaveer Saran (Rajasthan) 03:38.265.

200m Sprint: 1. Aditya Jakhar (Rajasthan); 2. Bikash Oraon (Jharkhand); 3. R Thanish (Telangana).

Girls

2km Individual Pursuit: 1. Harshitha Jakhar (Rajasthan) 02:35.178; 2. Bhumika (Maharashtra) 02:41.621; 3. Suhani Kumari (Tamil Nadu) 02:43.999.

200m Sprint: 1. Akansha Mhetre (Maharashtra); 2. Anaxiya Mariya Thomas (Kerala); 3. Sabina Kumari (Jharkhand).

--IANS

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