PINKI PANTHER: Pinki Paramanik, who also won 800m and powered India to 4x400m relay title, celebrates her 400m victory at the South Asian Games on Friday.

COLOMBO: One hundredth of a second separated winner R.D.U.S. Surendra of Sri Lanka and favourite Anil Kumar of India in the 100m glamour event in the men's section as the host continued to make major strides in the athletics arena of the South Asian Games here on Saturday.

The two were the winners in the respective heats held earlier but the Sri Lankan had looked a tad faster in his group and that was the ominous sign for the Indian.

As it happened, Anil Kumar, in whose name the record stands, was a wee bit slack off the blocks and even though he appeared to maintain a slender lead, Surendra nosed him out at the finish in grand style, the clock stopping at 10.52s, as a wave of cheers engulfed the Sugathadasa stadium.

Earlier in the women's section there was no looking beyond the Queen of Sri Lankan athletics, Susanthika Jayasinghe. She gave a glimpse of what is to come in the heats, and then proved it in the final race.

Her aim of erasing the 11.19s mark, which stands in the name of her compatriot Damayanthi Darsha, did not succeed. She had run 0.14 second slower.

The shock for India was that its main hope, Poonam Tomar was disqualified for foul start and the other Indian Deepti Jose just did not belong in this league.

India's track success lay in the 800m where Pinki Paramanik kept her reputation of a rising star intact while Francis Sagayaraj seemed to make a point by clinching his first international gold.

"I was not pushed,'' Pinki said on returning slower than her best time of 2:02.82. Sagayaraj praised his coach Dr Nikolai of Brussels for making him a winner.

Later in the relay, the Indian quartet of Poovamma, Shanti, Sini Jose and Pinki won the gold.

With success eluding Indians for the most part, there was one lone man in the high jump who seemed keen to reverse the trend.

Even though it was the Sri Lankans who caught the eye thanks to the boisterous crowd, Bendict Sterley was bent on keeping the Indian flag high.

But he failed in his first attempt at scaling 2.19m where the event's favourite Manjula Kumara did it in his first attempt. That ended the Indian's dream of a gold.

Paramanik to the fore

The women continued to be India's flag bearer with Paramanik anchoring a fine win in the 4 x 400 relay in style. Having won the 400 and 800m earlier, this Bengal girl bagged her third gold. Poovamma, Shanti, Sini Jose had done the initial rounds before Paramanik took over to finish a good one second ahead of Sri Lanka.

But as India feared, the Lankan men's quartet anchored by that mercurial Rohan Pradeep Kumara kept everyone at bay while finishing a grand win to bring Sri Lanka its fifth gold in the day, as compared to India's three.

The results:

Men: 100 m: 1. R.D.U.S. Surendra (SL) (10.52); 2. Anil Kumar (Ind) (10.53); 3. Jagdish Basak (Ind) (10.61). 800m: 1. Francis Sagayaraj (Ind) (1:50.23); 2. S. Abeynayaka (SL) (1:50.30); 3. W.G.A.K. Weliwita (SL) (1:50.36).

3000m steeplechase: 1. Rajendra Bhandari (Nep) (8:51.76); 2. Om Prakash (Ind) (9:00.99); 3. Rama Bahadur Subba (Ind) (9:02.15). Triple jump: 1. S.D.C. Sampath Weerasinghe (SL) (16.26m); 2. Waseem Khan (Pak) (15.85), 3. Bibu Mathew (Ind) (15.82).

High jump: 1. W.P. Manjula Kumara (SL) (2.19m, first attempt): 2. Bendict Sterley (Ind) (2.19): 3. A.D. Nalin Priyantha (SL) (2.16). Discus: 1. Basharat Ali (Pak) (55.10m): 2. Amrit Pal Singh (Ind) (52.89); 3. Harpreet Singh (Ind) (52.26). 4x400 m: 1. Sri Lanka (3:09.25); 2. India (3:10.47); 3 Pakistan (3:11.35).

Women: 100m: 1. Susanthika Jayasinghe (SL) 11.33s; 2. H.J.C.C. De Silva (SL) (11.76); 3. Sadaf Siddiqui (Pak) (12.07). 800m: 1. Pinki Paramanik (Ind) (2:03.81); 2. S. Shanthi (2:04.77); 3. Bushra Parveen (Pak) (2:08.04). 4x400m: 1. India (Poovamma, Shanti, Sini Jose, Pinki Paramanik) (3:38.01); 2. Sri Lanka (3:39.48); 3. Pakistan (3:44.81)

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