Bhubaneswar: Bringing laurels to the state, two female athletes from the state have achieved the qualifying mark for Asian Games, which will be held in Jakarta, from August this year.

Jauna Murmu and Dutee Chand booked their berths in women's 400m and 200m hurdles at the 58th National Inter State Senior Athletics Championships that began in Guwahati on Tuesday.

Dutee Chand locked 23:41 seconds to make the cut in the final round. She finished second after Hima Das who qualified with a timing of 23.10 seconds. The Athletics Federation of India has set a qualifying standard of 23:50 seconds for this event.

Meanwhile, this was touted as a comeback for Jauna who was suspended for two years in 2011 for a doping violation.Murmu's winning time of 57.02 seconds was inside the qualifying mark of 57.52 seconds and bettered the meet record of 57.21 seconds although her personal best was 56.86 set in 2010 Asian Games.

"I never believed that I could make a comeback, but my coach said I can do it," said an elated Jauna.

In January 2017, she quit the national camp due to differences with national sprints coach Ranbir Singh Sidhu and trained on her own. She feels the win will erase all her bad memories. She said she aspired to achieve P.T. Usha's national record of 55.42 seconds. Dutee qualified one of the heats with 23.46 seconds to qualify for the final round of the women's 200m race.

Dutee, who specializes in the 100m race, said that she was confident of qualifying for the same too. "I will give my best efforts to ensure that I bring name to my state," she said. The sprinter, who is training with coach N Ramesh in Hyderabad, also aspires to qualify for the 400m race.