— PHOTO: AFP

WINNING QUARTET: Pinki Paramanik, Chitra K. Soman, S. Geetha and Manjeet Kaur brought India's lone athletics gold.

DOHA: India wound up its rather gloomy athletics programme on a bright note, winning its only gold in the women's 4 x 400m relay, as expected, in the 15th Asian Games at the Khalifa Stadium here on Tuesday.

The Chinese may have been on top and India a far cry from the powerhouse it was when it swept seven golds in the last edition at Busan, but in a final hurrah India beat the Chinese fair and square in the last segment of the relay.

India's heroine

Manjeet Kaur, the silver medalist in the 400m was the heroine yet again, as she underlined her strength as the anchor with a terrific run especially in the final stretch when the Chinese was not able to breathe down her neck anymore.

After S. Geetha and Pinki Paramanik had struggled to keep pace with the Chinese, Chitra K. Soman did a terrific job in getting the baton to Manjeet who exploded straightaway, leaving the rest to do the hard work of chasing her all the way. She held on, and helped the team win by nearly a second.

Actually, the Chinese who led in the first three laps through Han Ling, Huang Xiaoxiao and Tang Xiaoyin finished with the bronze, as the 400m champion Olga Tereshkova, anchoring for Kazakhstan, squeezed past the Chinese at the post. India was earlier able to bag a bronze in the women's 1500m through Sinimole Paulose. While Maryam Yusuf Jamal kept her date with her second gold medal, beating the rest by a mile, Sinimole was pipped at the post by the Japanese by 0.13 seconds.

The 23-year-old Sinimole clocked 4:15.09 as against her personal best of 4:10.51 while winning the inter-State in Chennai.

"I am happy to have won the medal. I have to improve in all areas to compete with world class champions like Maryam Jamal. She is very impressive,'' said Sinimole Paulose.

Double for Maryam

Maryam was understandably happy to have won the 800 and 1500 double. "I achieved my aim. This is what I wanted. The competition was not tough and I expected to win,'' said Maryam.

Yuriko Kobayashi of Japan gave herself a memorable 18th birthday gift by pulling ahead of the Indian for the silver in the climax. "I tried to break my personal record and I was trying to win a medal too. There was a big gap with the runner ahead, but I didn't panic. I managed to concentrate and keep my own pace,'' said Yuriko.

The world record holder and Olympic champion, Liu Xiang flew over the hurdles as he won the gold ahead of compatriot Shi Dongpeng at 13.15s in the 110m hurdles.

"Before the race I planned to run slower, but after the start I saw a black shadow following me. I was scared of being defeated. So I picked up my pace,'' said the 23-year-old Liu Xiang, who had run a 12.88s world record at Lausanne in July.

The 22-year-old Shi Dongpeng literally shadowed the Olympic champion. He lost the gold by 0.13s, and beat the Japanese for the silver rather comfortably.

Lower placings

In the men's 5000m, which looked like an African final with James Kwalia Kurui, Mucheru Salem and Sultan Khamis Zaman taking the first three positions, Sunil Kumar (13:58.50s) and Surendra Kumar Singh (13:59.05s) did well to take the fifth and sixth places.

In men's triple jump, M. Ranjeeth finished fourth with a 16.54m, while the gold went to Li Yanxi of China at 17.06m. V.S. Surekha finished sixth in women's pole vault with a 3.80m while the gold went to Gao Shuying of China at 4.30m.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail