The Hindu : Sport / Athletics : Jaisha completes double

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 16, 2005

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Sport - Athletics

Jaisha completes double

BANGKOK: O. P. Jaisha completed a double while Navpreet Singh expectedly took the shot put gold as the 11-member Indian athletics team wound up with a six-gold, on-bronze haul in the inaugural Asian Indoor Games on Tuesday.

India also won the women's 4x400m gold on the concluding day of the athletics action at Pattaya, near here, while Sinimol Paulose accounted for the bronze.

Arjun Muralidharan (200m butterfly silver) and Shikha Tandon (100m back-stroke bronze in national record time) contributed medals from the swimming pool while Varun Kumar Barnwal managed an unexpected silver in the Thai boxing sport of muay, placing second in the lightweight (58kg-61kg) division.

Kerala girl Jaisha who has had her senior continental baptism at the Incheon Asian championships in September, exceeded expectations by winning her second gold medal of the meet. The 22-year-old Wayanad athlete who had earlier won the 3000 metres, added the 1500m gold to her collection, clocking 4:15.75. Sinimol Paulose (4:18.08) claimed the bronze behind Kazakh Svetlana Lukasheva (4:16.96).

Navpreet, silver winner at Incheon, towered above the rest in the shot put competition, and though he putted well below par, at 18.80m the gold was his without trouble. Iranian Seyed Mahdi Shahrokhi (18.33m) and Chinese Tian Yungchun (17.57m) won the silver and bronze.

The women's 4x400m relay team comprising Iylene Samantha, S. Shanthi, Mandeep Kaur and Pinki Parmanik clocked 3:46.48 while winning the gold. Parmanik was allowed to run after the Indian team management made an appeal following her disqualification on Monday. Thailand (3:48.25) and Macau (4:08.47) came behind India.

Shikha Tandon opened India's medal tally at the Huamark Complex swimming pool here, clocking a national record of 1:04.91 for the bronze in the 100m back-stroke final. She bettered her own record of 1:06.95 clocked in September 2003. Chinese Bai Anqi (1:01.91) and Xie Jue (1:03.69) were ahead of her.

Arjun Muralidharan was just 0.30 secs behind Korean Won Jae Yun in the 200m butterfly final as India added one more medal on the last day of the swimming competition.

Varn Kumar Barnwal, like Kamal Singh Thakur the previous day, provided the surprise by claiming the silver in the lightweight class of the wai-khru contest in muay.

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