In the Asian Athletcics Championships 2019 held at Doha, Qatar, Indian Middle distance runner PU Chithra won the nation's third gold medal, in the women's 1500 running. Earlier, Gomathi Marimuthu had won India's first Gold medal in the championships in 800 meter, and Tajinder Pal won second gold in Men's Shot put events.

The 23 year old Chithra clocked 4:14.56s and in the process became the first Indian athlete to defend her Asian Athletics Championships. Chithra had previously won gold medal in the women's 1500m race in the 2017 Asian Athletics Championships, Bhubaneshwar. She had a perfect plan in the race as she was running with the leaders throughout the race, and then towards the end she raced ahead of Bahrain based runners Gashaw Tigest and Winfred Mutile.

Gashaw Tigest won silver with 4:14.81s timing and Mutile clinched bronze medal with a timing of 4:16.18s.It must be noted that in the 2018 Asian games, Chithra was pushed to third place by Gashaw Tigest.Chithra revealed that she was little nervous towards the end as she was running next to Gashaw Tigest who had made her third in the 2018 Asian Games, and this made her push hard towards end.