Wednesday, Jul 21, 2004
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Athletics
By S. Thyagarajan
CHENNAI, JULY 20. What appeared to be a sedate finish on the last day suddenly erupted into brilliance in the Inter-state athletics meet at the JN Stadium. And the two competitors who lifted the whole aspect of competition into a new realm of excellence were Soma Biswas, who reached the Olympic qualifying norm in heptathlon (6162 points), and Amarjeet Singh whose splendid effort erased the meet record in triple jump (16.44m). For the 26-year old Soma it turned out to be a memorable evening as it was for Bobby Aloysius on the opening day. At the end of the second day, Soma had a tally of 3510. On the concluding day she leaped 6.27m in long jump, threw the javelin to 46.91m, and clocked 2.13.20 for 800 metres to achieve tally of 6162 points to fulfil the A standard, the norm for Athens. Born in Ranaghat in West Bengal, Soma, who is now based in Kolkata, had a personal best of 6186 points here in 2000 which enabled her to figure in the Sydney Olympics. She had a gold (4 x 400 relay) and a silver (Heptathlon) in the last Asian Games at Busan. In etching into the record books the second best ever triple jump by an Indian, Amarjeet Singh carved a niche for himself in the history by achieving the longest distance on home soil. The meet record stood in the name of K. Suresh Babu at 16.18m set in 1976 at Palai, and was equalled by Pritipal Singh in the 2002 edition at Bangalore.
Amarjeet misses mark
The national record, however, remains with Mohinder Singh Gill (16.79m) established in 1971 at Fresno in United States. Amarjeet today missed the Athens qualifying mark of 16.55m by 11 cm. Amarjeet Singh opened with a fluent jump of 16.17m, then fouled the second one. Thereafter it was 15.92m, 15.97m, 16.40, and then that record effort of 16.44m. Egged on by the goodly crowd, the gangling 23-year old sub-inspector from Punjab Police surged into a powerful run, achieved a firm plant, hopped beautifully, sailed well enough and landed gracefully for the meet record. When he touched the ground he knew that the new distance had come into his fold. With arms raised, he acknowledged the cheers. It is a pity that he missed the qualifying norm notwithstanding the superb effort. The cynosure however was the strapping Karnataka lad, Vikas Gowda in the discus throw area. The 21-year old US based student was expected to hit the qualifying mark again on Indian soil. He had achieved the norm with a throw of 64.35m on May 19 this year in the Hartnell Invitation meet at Salinas (Los Angeles). Vikas is a fourth year student in the University of North Carolina. But the hot and humid afternoon here was not his best day. He won the gold all right with a throw of 58.48m in the second attempt. His first effort was 58.32, and he fouled the rest of the throws. Gowda was sporting enough to concede and his performance was very much below expectations. Punjab's Gurpreet Singh completed a hurdles double (110 and 400 metres) when he won the 400 metres this afternoon with a time of 51.14s. Both Anil Kumar of Kerala and Sarawathi Saha of West Bengal won their 200 metres races from start to finish, decimating all the challenge.
Punjab wins title
Punjab won the overall championship with an aggregate of 146 points (men 78, women 68), while Tamil Nadu claimed the women's team championship with 94 points. Punjab annexed the championship for men with 78 points. Anil Kumar and Bobby Aloysius of Kerala were declared as the best men and women athletes of the meet respectively.
Men: 200m: 1. Anil Kumar (Ker) (20.90s), 2. Abishek Pandey (UP) (21.54), 3. Ganesh Satpute (Maha) (21.83s).
800m: 1. P.S. Primesh (Ker) (1:50.90s), 2. Jayakumar (Ker) (1:51.53s), 3. K.S. Ashok (Kar) (1.53.07s).
5000m: 1. Mukesh Kumar (UP) (14:48.82s), 2. Sunil Kumar (Har) (14:49.13s), 3. Pritam Bind (UTR) (15:00.01).
400 hurdles: 1. Gurpreet Singh (Punjab) (51.14s), 2. Kuldev Singh (Punjab) (51.98s), 3. Kiran Prasad (Ker) (52.38s).
Triple Jump: 1. Amarjeet Singh (Punjab) (16.44m. meet record), 2. Alex Thomas (TN) (15.56m), 3. Bhupinder Singh (Punjab) (15.48m).
Discus throw: 1. Vikas Gowda (Kar) (58.48m), 2. Gursevak Singh (Punjab) (53.32m), 3. Amandeep Singh (Punjab) (50.22m).
Javelin throw: 1. Jagdish Bishnoi (Punjab) (75.38m), 2. Gajinder (UP), (73.16m), 3. Om Narayan (Har) (72.71m).
4 x 400 relay: 1. Kerala (Sunil Joseph, K.A. Jayakumar, T.S. Primesh, Srijit ) (3.13.69s), 2. UP (3:15.45s), 3. Tamil Nadu (3:19.47s).
Women: 200m: 1. Saraswathi Saha (WB) (23.30s), 2. Rakhee Saha (WB) (24.78s), 3. Anju Kumari (TN) (25.16s).
800m: 1. Madhuri A. Singh (Punjab) (2:02.55s), 2. Sunita (Delhi) (2:05.51s), 3. S. Shanthi (TN) (2:09.63s).
10,000m: 1. Rajni (Punjab) (39:35.57s), 2.Vaishali Chatre (Maha) (40:27.38s), 3. Asha Sadhu (WB) (41:14.69s).
400 hurdles: 1.Babita Choudhary (Maha) (1:00.20s), 2.Rosalin Arokoyamary (TN) (1:01.92s), 3.K.J.Vijila (Ker) (1:02.30s).
Pole vault: 1. Chetna Solanki (UP) (3.50m meet record), 2. V.S. Sureka (TN) (3.50m), 3. Deepa Choudhry (Delhi) (3.30m).
Heptathlon: 1. Soma Biswas (WB) (6162 points), 2. Sushmitasinga Roy (WB) (5105), 3. Manju Poulose (Ker) (4647).
20,000 metre walk: 1. Amandeep Kaur (Punjab) (1:54:47.88s), 2. Deepmala Devi (Manipur) (1:57:29.42s), 3. Sandeep Kaur (Punjab) (1:58:2.37s).
4 x 400 relay: 1. Tamil Nadu (Ilavarasi, Tharani, Roselin Arokyamary, S. Shanthi) (3:51.12s), 2. Kerala (3:52.12s), 3. West Bengal (4:11.82s).
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