The Hindu : Sport : Maha Singh emerges the unlikely hero

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Wednesday, Apr 07, 2004

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Sport - Sports : General

Maha Singh emerges the unlikely hero

By Kamesh Srinivasan

ISLAMABAD, APRIL 6. Maha Singh emerged the unexpected hero in the long jump event while Amritpal Singh had to be taken off on a stretcher, as the athletic competition wound up in the ninth SAF Games at the Jinnah Stadium here on Tuesday.

The Indian athletes won four of the nine gold medals on offer. Lijesh Kumar captured the javelin gold with his first throw of 75.71 metres beating a spirited Pakistani challenge. Jagdish Bishnoi was woefully off colour as he struggled to cross the 70-metre mark, when he was expected to touch the Olympic qualifying mark of 77.80.

India could have won at least one more gold but for Poonam Tomar squandering a fine lead that had been set up by K.M. Greeshma, K.N. Priya and Rakhi Saha in the short relay.

There was a minor controversy in the evening when P. Shanker on the anchor was elbowed out to the bronze by Rana Sagher Ahmad of Pakistan in the longer relay but the Indian team opted not to lodge a protest in keeping with the overall spirit.

The day belonged to Maha Singh. The Railway employee from Ambala jumped a career-best 7.70 metres, and revealed that he could have done better but for lack of crowd support at the southern end of the stadium.

It is another matter that the sizeable gathering at the northern end of the stadium, watching the track events, had a lot to cheer about as Pakistan did very well in the afternoon.

Incidentally, Maha Singh had only two clear jumps, the other being a 7.51 on the first attempt. The winning jump was on the fifth. The silver looked to be Amritpal Singh's as he was behind his compatriot at 7.59 till Ghulam Abbas of Pakistan came up with an effort of 7.60, after having cleared only 7.38 till the fifth jump.

Amritpal aggravated his hamstring injury on his last jump lay writhing in pain before he was taken off for medical attention. He was back on his feet for the medal ceremony later in the day. For someone who had captured everyone's imagination by beating T.C. Yohannan's 30-year-old National record with an 8.08 in the Federation Cup in Delhi, Amritpal had only a bronze to show for his efforts here.

Ghamanda Ram returned a personal best of 3:50.18 in taking the bronze in the 1,500-metre event, in which Atta Miran of Pakistan charged out in the last lap to outrace the Sri Lankan, Chaminda Wijekoon, much to the jubilation of the spectators.

Krishna Mohan missed the 110-metre hurdles silver by one-hundredth of a second, but the 19-year-old Army lad was pleased with his first international medal with his best time.

The men's shorter relay was well run by Nagraj, Sandeep Sarkaria, Piyush Kumar and Vilas Neelgund, as the foursome set a new meet mark of 39.91, erasing the previous time of 40.14 set on the same track by another Indian team in 1989.

"We didn't have our full team here. Anil Kumar and Sanjay Ghosh are training for the Olympics. I and Sandeep are trying to qualify through the relay for the Olympics and are working towards the target,'' said Piyush Kumar, who had won the 100 metres on Monday.

K.N. Priya, an MBA student from Chennai, was quite pleased with her time of 13.84 in bagging the silver ahead of compatriot Soma Biwas in the 100-metre hurdles, behind the favourite Sriyani Kulawansa of Sri Lanka.

"This is my fourth international competition and am happy with the time and pretty satisfied with the medal,'' said Priya.

In the women's longer relay, Chitra K. Soman, Sagardeep Kaur, Pinki Parmanik and S. Geetha beat the rest easily. Geetha was particularly pleased to have qualified for the Olympics the previous day with a 52.25 in the 400 metres. In the process, she joined Anju George, Neelam J. Singh, Amritpal Singh and J. J. Shoba in the Athens-bound list.

"I have won the relay gold at different levels, but to win the individual gold was great. I am thankful to God and grateful to coach N. Ramesh,'' said the 20-year-old South Central Railway employee from Secunderabad, who was quick to acknowledge the SAI coaches Suresh Saini and Joginder Singh Saini as well.

Overall it was a satisfying show for India in track and field, as it ended its campaign with 15 of the 32 gold medals at stake, despite having fielded its second string.

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