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Athletics
By K.P. Mohan
Japan's Kazuyoshi Ishikawa leaping to the men's triple jump gold at the Asian athletics championships in Manila on Monday. — Photo: V. Sudershan
Just as it was in the 10,000 metres on the opening day, the Chinese had no opposition worth the name, though two Japanese, Yuko Manabe and Hiromi Fujii, were in the fray. Sun Yingjie's winning time of 15:48.42 might look pedesetrian in front of her own 14:57.01 in the Paris Worlds, but she was in mediocre company here and had to set her own pace. With a day to go, China has an impressive collection of 13 gold medals and looks poised to better its tally of 14 golds at the Busan Asian Games. China had won 10 golds at the last Asian meet in Colombo. The monotonous Chinese sweep was interrupted by a 20-year-old Japanese triple jumper. Kazuyoshi Ishikawa posted a personal best 16.72 to win a tight contest from two equally talented Chinese, Gu Junjie and Wu Ji. After Ishikawa leapfrogged from an opening round of 14.29 to a third-round winning effort, the fight, as it eventually turned out, boiled down to the silver. Eighteen-year-old Gu won that battle, with a bare centimetre separating him from his team-mate, the 25-year-old Wu. Another Kazak veteran struck it rich. Grigoriy Yegorov, who shares the continental pole vault record (5.90m) with countryman Igor Potapovich, scaled 5.40 metres to clinch the gold at a venue where he had made his Asian debut, 10 years ago. China claimed both the throw golds at stake on this third day. Gu Yuan, who had registered an Asian record of 72.03m in hammer at Shanghai on September 12, was untroubled as she won with a fourth-round best of 70.78m. Team-mate Liu Ynghui's silver came at 66.66 while Japan's Masumi Aya was the bronze winner at 64.04. Li Rongxiang was the hot favourite for the men's javelin title and he obliged, though with a below-par 79.25 metres. That it happened to be on his opening throw made sure that the others would be under pressure to pull off something extra-ordinary. From the Indian angle, the most encouraging piece of news was the personal best first-day scores recorded by both of its decathletes, Kulwinder Singh and P.J. Vinod. At 3825, that was 10 points better than his previous best posted at Jamshedpur during the inter-State, Vinod was at overall seventh, while at 3791, Kulwinder was lying eighth. Armyman Kulwinder had two personal bests this day, a 10.92s in the 100m (previous 11.20) and a 13.18m in shot put (previous 12.76), while Vinod, a trainee of Suresh Babu, had a PB of 11.08 in 100m, his previous best being 11.10 at Jamshedpur where he took the second place (6886) behind Kulwinder (7218). Vinod felt that Kulwinder was on way to a possible National record. Vijay Singh Chauhan's National mark of 7306 has stood since the Munich Olympics in 1972. The Indian woman 800m runners, Madhuri Singh and Sunita Kanojia qualified for the final while the male two-lapper P. S. Primesh (1:50.45 for third in heat) failed. K.M. Binu was absent, not having recovered from the fever that had gripped him ever since he reached Delhi from Patiala. Hardeep Kaur (58.18m) and Ritu Rani (53.30), making her Asian debut, took the fifth and sixth places in women's hammer while Aruna Devi finished fifth in the 5000m at 17:31.67. Vinita Tripathi could clock only a 24.48s for her third place in heat No. 3 of 200 metres on her way out. She held the National mark of 23.04s till Saraswati Saha bettered it in Ludhiana last year with a 22.82s effort. Saha, incidentally, has not made the team this time. The results:
Men:
Women:
Medals Tally The Medals Tally at the 15th Asian Athletics Championships after Monday's events.
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