Hima Das
Hima Das could become one of the greatest Indian athletesIANS

India has finally found a successor to PT Usha. Hima Das of Assam has been making India proud for more than a year. She took her success to another level by winning a fifth gold medal inside a month, this time in the 400 meters race. The location of her latest triumph was Prague in Czech Republic.

This latest performance may not have been as impressive as what we have seen in the past from the Dhing Express. Her personal best timing in the 400 meter event is 50.79 seconds whereas she took 52.09 to win this latest gold. But it's the consistency of her endeavours that is remarkable.

This streak of success for Hima began with a gold in the Poznan Grand Prix's 200 meter event in Poland on July 2. In under a week, on July 7, she got another one in the same country at the Kutno Athletics meet. On July 13, the new golden girl of India made it three in a row by getting gold at the Kladno Athletics meet in Czech Republic. Her fourth gold of the month was achieved on 17th in the same country, at the Tabor Athletics meet.

Hima Das
Hima after winning her latest goldTwitter

All these four golds were achieved in the 200m category and the timings she generated for all these triumphs was above 23 seconds. This is still not good enough for her to win medals at the highest level. But since the Assamese girl is still just 19, we can expect her to get better.

The national record for women's 200m is 22.82 seconds, with wind assistance of 0.8, created in 2002 by Saraswati Saha. Hima's personal best is 23.10. The world record in this discipline is 21.34 seconds whereas the winner of this event at the 2018 Athletics World Cup was 22.35. Safe to say, the recent success of the 19-year old should only be the stepping stone for further triumphs.

In 400m discipline, the Assamese girl's personal best is also the national record. The world record is 47.60 but the winner of the event in the 2018 Athletics World Cup had a timing of 50.99. So, this is an event where her chances of emulating PT Usha and even going further than her are best. Hopefully, her timings would get lower and success rate higher in future.