The Hindu : Sport : Anju George wins, but disappoints

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Saturday, Mar 04, 2006

Sport

Sport

Anju George wins, but disappoints

K. P. Mohan

Career-best mark by Susmita in heptathlon

BELOW PAR: Anju George failed to impress while winning the gold. — Photo: V. Sudershan

NEW DELHI: With all eyes and cameras focused on the long jump pit, Anju George reeled off four jumps of 6.30 plus before redeeming her reputation somewhat with a last-gasp jump of 6.47 metres on the concluding day of the Federation Cup athletics championships at the Nehru Stadium here on Friday.

"The rhythm was just not there," said Anju disappointed that the start of her outdoor campaign had ended up in this fashion when she and husband-coach Bobby George had aimed for a distance of around 6.70 metres.

"I wanted her to go into the Commonwealth Games with about 6.70 which would have been the best mark by a Commonwealth athlete this season," said Bobby.

Now she would be going into the World Indoor championships in Moscow (March 10-12), with just the Asian indoors mark of 6.32 and this one. Anju had a series of 6.31, 6.32, 6.33, 6.36, 6.29 and 6.47.

"I got some of my rhythm only after the first three jumps. My check mark was wrong to begin with and by the time I corrected and got back my rhythm it was the end of competition," said Anju. Not only was her rhythm wrong, her landing was also far from satisfactory.

Best performance

The best performance of the day came from the 22-year-old Bengal girl Susmita Singha Roy who notched up a career-best 5872 points in heptathlon to cement her place in the Melbourne-bound Indian team.

Susmita had six personal bests, in 100m hurdles (13.90s), shot put (11.38m), 200m (24.14s), long jump (6.17m), javelin (38.61m) and 800m (2:16.72) for her overall tally. Only the high jump defied her PB streak, she managing 1.72 metres against her best of 1.80 metres.

"I was hoping to log my best here in order to get into the team for the Commonwealth Games and I achieved that," said Susmita who last September had finished second to her Bengal team-mate and training partner Soma Biswas in the Asian championships at Incheon, Korea.

Soma ended second with 5857 points while J. J. Shobha, back into her first heptathlon competition after the now-famous injury at the Athens Olympics, also did well compiling 5720 points for the third place.

Manjeet Kaur won the much-awaited clash among the woman quarter-milers, clocking 52.04s, with Chitra Soman (52.65) and Satti Geetha (52.73) coming behind her. The 800m winner, Pinki Paramanik pushed the better-rated Rajwinder Kaur to the fifth place.

Binu injured

K. M. Binu, who was tipped to win the 400 metres by many in the Federation Cup, suffered another hamstring injury on Friday, limping out of the final after about 120 metres. Binu had missed almost the entire season last year and was coming back into shape when he suffered a hamstring strain during training in South Africa and missed the first two meets this season. Friday's injury, it is feared, might turn out to be more severe than what he had suffered so far. He had gone to Bangalore on return from South Africa for ayurvedic treatment and was said to be in fine form and fitness.

The results:

Men: 100m: 1. Anil Kumar (Army) 10.44s, 2. Sethil Murugan (TN) 10.81, 3. S. Alex Anthony Raj (TN) 10.82; 400m: 1. Bhupinder Singh (ONGC) 46.14s, 2. S. Srinivas (AP) 46.85, 3. P. Shankar (ONGC) 46.92; 1500m: 1. Pritam Bind (ONGC) 3:47.13, 2. Ravinder (Del) 3:47.36, 3. C. Hamza (Army) 3:47.67; 10,000m: 1. Deep Chand (Army) 30:09.26, 2. Surender (Army) 30:31.28, 3. Santosh Kumar Patel (UP) 30:31.48; high jump: 1. Benedict Starli (TN) 2.13m (NMR, previous 2.11), 2. K. R. Roshan (Ker) 2.13, 3. Omveer Singh (Raj) 2.05; shot put: 1. Jaiveer Singh (Army) 17.36, 2. Om Prakash (Har) 17.26, 3. Gurdev Singh (Pun) 17.20; javelin: 1. Anil Kumar (Har) 75.89m, 2. Ankit Kumar (Del) 72.96, 3. Jagdish Bishnoi (P. Pol) 72.82; 4x400m relay: Indian Army 3:15.38, 2. Kerala 3:15.71, 3. Tamil Nadu 3:19.68.

Women: 100m: 1. Deepti Jose (Ker) 11.91s, 2. Poonam Tomar (Del) 11.92, 3. Shijila V. D. (Ker) 400m: 1. Manjeet Kaur (P. Pol) 52.04s, 2. Chitra K. Soman (Jharkhand) 52.65, 3. Satti Geetha (AP) 52.73; 1500m: 1. O. P. Jaisha (Ker) 4:15.07, 2. Sinimole Paulose (Jharkhand) 4:18.97, 3. S. Shanthi (TN) 4:35.95; 10,000m: 1. Preeja Sreedharan (Ker) 36:21.43, 2. Pampa Chanda (Ben) 36:40.32, 3. Geeta Rani (Del) 36:52. 12; long jump: 1. Anju B. George (TN) 6.47m, 2. Anisha K. Vijayan (CRPF) 6.01, 3. P. K. Priya (Ker) 5.92; discus: 1. Seema Antil (CRPF) 59.51m, 2. Krishna Poonia (Raj) 55.57, 3. Saroj Sihag (CRPF) 52.56; heptathlon: 1. Susmita Singha Roy (Ben) 5872 pts, 2. Soma Biswas (Ben) 5857, 3. J. J. Shobha (AP) 5720; 4x400m relay: 1. Andhra Pradesh 3:43.05, 2. Kerala 3:43.47, 3. West Bengal 3:53.14.