Long-distance runner Gulveer Singh shattered a decade-old meet record, while teenaged high-jumper Pooja Singh produced a personal best performance as the duo added a couple of more gold medals to India’s kitty on the penultimate day of the 26th Asian Athletics Championships in Gumi, South Korea on Friday.

Gulveer etched his name among the greats of Indian long-distance running by winning a tightly-contested men’s 5000m final to add to his 10,000m gold won on the opening day of the competition.

The national-record-holding runner clocked 13:24.77sec to edge past Thailand’s Kieran Tuntivate, who finished close behind at 13:24.97sec, while Japan’s Nagiya Mori took bronze in 13:25.06sec.

The previous championship record belonged to Qatar’s Mohamed Al-Garni, who had clocked 13:34.47sec in the 2015 edition.

Later, 18-year-old Pooja jumped to a personal best of 1.89m in her penultimate attempt to finish ahead of Uzbekistan’s Safina Sadullaeva (1.86m).

The Haryana teen, whose father is a construction worker, has been doing well at the continental level, having earlier collected a gold at the Asian Under-23 Championships in 2023.

Pooja became only the second Indian woman since Bobby Aloysius to win a medal in high jump at the Asian Championships, securing gold in 2000 and silver in 2002.

The win completed a remarkable double for Gulveer, who had earlier bagged gold in the 10,000m competition on the opening day with a timing of 28:38.63sec.

With this performance, Gulveer joined an elite group of Indian athletes to have won gold in the men’s 5000m event of the continental meet — the other three being Gopal Saini (1981), Bahadur Prasad (1993), and G Lakshmanan (2017).

The 26-year-old from Atrauli in Uttar Pradesh had also won a bronze in the 2023 edition.

Meanwhile, Nandini Agasara claimed gold in heptathlon. It was India's 8th gold at the Championships. She is only the third Indian to win heptathlon gold at the Asian Championships, following Swapna Barman (2017) and Soma Biswas (2005).

However, there was mild disappointment in the women’s 3000m steeplechase, where defending champion Parul Chaudhary had to settle for silver.

She clocked 9:12.46sec, setting a new national record. She also held the previous record of 9:13.39, set at the 2025 Doha Diamond League, and was bested by Kazakhstan’s Norah Jeruto Tanui (9:10.46sec). The bronze also went to a Kazakh, Daisy Jepkemei (9:27.51sec).

In other events, women’s 100m hurdles gold-winner Jyothi Yarraji and Nithya Gandhe advanced to the 200m finals after clocking 23.74sec and 23.77sec respectively in their heats.

In the men’s 200m event, Animesh Kujur entered the semifinals after clocking 20.98sec in his preliminary race.

At the end of the day, India hold onto their second position on the medal tally, staying ahead of Japan, with 18 medals - 8 gold, 7 silver and 3 bronze. India currently trail China, who won 26 medals so far.