The Hindu : Sport / Athletics : `Juma Khatun and Rose Mani assets for the future'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 20, 2005

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Sport - Athletics

`Juma Khatun and Rose Mani assets for the future'

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The 13-member Indian athletics team returned here on Tuesday from Marrakesh, Morocco, after a none-too-impressive performance in the World Youth championships.

The Chief Coach of the juniors, Suresh Babu, singled out Bengal girl Juma Khatun and Kerala boy Rose Mani Robin for special mention. "These two athletes should be assets for the future," he said. "Considering her age, M. Poovamma (15) should also be capable of doing well in future," he added.

Juma Khatun made the semifinals of the girls' 800 metres, clocking a personal best 2:09.89 in the first round. She could not keep up the tempo in the semifinal and faded to the sixth place in her heat in 2:10.42, placing 11th overall. "Juma ran very well," said the coach.

Disappointed that the medley relay teams failed to make the final in both sections, Suresh Babu drew some consolation from the fact that the girls' team of A. Jessy, C. T. Raji, Poovamma and Mandeep Kaur clocked its best of 2:13.56 as against 2:16.20 at home. The team finished fourth after Jamaica's disqualification, but could have been in the final had the anchor (400m) Mandeep Kaur made an extra effort, Suresh Babu felt. "Mandeep actually saw that she was coming fifth and the team had no chance of qualification and thus slackened a little in the final 200 metres", said the coach. "Jamaica's disqualification meant that we could have, had Mandeep, with all her experience, gone all out."

The boys' relay team disappointed clocking 1:55.64, well behind its effort of 1:54.60 at home. "Rose Mani ran a superb anchor leg and he made up a big gap," said Suresh Babu.

Barring Mandeep Kaur, the rest of the team members were making their international debut. Mandeep had competed at the world and Asian junior levels in the past.

A travel-weary Bharat Inder Singh could do no better than 6.72m in the long jump qualifying, against his best of 7.21 metres, while an indisposed Malkit Singh who was hospitalised in Marrakesh following a throat infection and fever, managed just 14.23m in the triple jump qualification round to go out.

Pointing out the high standards witnessed in the championships for under-18, Suresh Babu said that seven boys jumped 16 metres or better in triple jump final while 13 boys had crossed the automatic qualifying mark of 15.10m. The boys' high jump winning mark of 2.27m, pole vault mark of 5.30m and long jump gold-winning effort of 7.97m were also of a very high class, he pointed out.

Suresh Babu was, however, most impressed by the performance of the girls' 400m winner, Nawal El Jack of Sudan who clocked 52.22s in the first round, 51.83s in the semifinal for a championship record and improved it further to 51.19s while winning the gold.

The coach also mentioned Bahrain's Mansoor Ali Belal for his outstanding 3:36.98 for the boys' 1500m gold. He is of course the world (youth) record holder at 3:33.86.

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