The Hindu : Sport : Sinimole, Renjith, women’s relay team bag gold

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Monday, Jul 30, 2007
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Sinimole, Renjith, women’s relay team bag gold

K. P. Mohan

Bronze for Mathew, men’s relay team on the concluding day

— File Photo

FINE DISPLAY: India’s Renjith Maheswary won the men’s triple jump gold.

AMMAN: Triple jumper Renjith Maheswary produced a phenomenal series of jumps while winning the gold medal with a wind-aided 17.19 metres on the concluding day of the 17th Asian athletics championships here on Sunday.

The final day proved very productive for India as Sinimole Paulose in the 1,500 metres and the women’s 4x400m relay team added to the gold collection.

Bibu Mathew came up with a personal best of 16.64m to take the bronze in triple jump and before the meet concluded the men’s 4xx400m relay team chipped in with another bronze.

Improved show

India improved upon its Incheon performance by winning five gold, five silver and five bronze medals. It was 4-5-4 in 2005. More importantly, India also climbed to the second place in the standings, behind China (7-4-4) from

its fourth position in Incheon. Before we jump to conclusions, it must be noted that China and Japan fielded second-string teams here while Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain were not at full strength.

Since bettering Mohinder Singh Gill’s 36-year-old record in the Asian Grand Prix in Guwahati last month with a jump of 17.04m, Renjith had been in the news and was projected as India’s best bet for the gold here.

In great form

The 22-year-old Kottayam man annihilated the field here, which, it must be mentioned, did not have the top two Chinese, Zhung Minwei (17.27) and Gu Junjie (17.11) of the season. Kazakh Roman Valiyev, another top contender pulled out at the last moment.

Even if they were in the fray, Renjith would have taken them on; he was in that kind of form this day. He had a series of 16.47, 16.97, 16.94, 16.93, 17.19 and 15.83. Almost all jumps were wind-aided. Though his 17.19 was better than his Guwahati performance it will not count as a national record because of the wind factor. Korean Kim Duk-Hyun won the silver with a last-round jump of 17 metres while Bibu Mathew’s 16.64 was wind-aided.

“I could not breathe properly till the fourth round,” said Renjith, elated at his first Asian senior title and also his excellent series.

Good comeback

Putting memories of her 800m defeat behind, the 24-year-old Sinimole held herself back till 200 metres from the finish in the metric mile before easily catching up with Bahrain’s Sara Bekheet and going past her around the home bend. The timings were poor by any standard, 4:25.67 for Sinimole and 4:26.21 for Bekheet.

The Vietnamese, Truong Thanh Hang, winner of the 800m, had 4:26.77while Japanese Mika Yoshikawa who was the only one expected to challenge the Indian in this field faded to fourth in 4:28.81. Indian Sushma Devi finished fifth and last in 4:41.29.

“This was a race to win, not to clock good timings. In any case we were not able to clock our best timings here (because of the conditions, especially altitude) no matter how much we tried. Thus it had to be a race to get the gold medal," said Sinimole .

The bronze medallist from the last Asian Games in Doha, Sinimole, who hails from Pampakuda (Ernakulam District) in Kerala, was full of praise for her coach, Belasus’s Nikolai Snesarev and her sponsor, Tata Steel.

Japanese Asami Tanno put in a tremendous anchor to threaten Indian women’s longer relay team, but Chitra Soman held her off comfortably in the end. The Indian team clocked 3:33.39.

A poor anchor by B.G. Nagaraj robbed India of a medal in the men’s 4x100m relay. India was in second place on the last change but could not match Qatar and China. Thailand won both the sprint relays.

The results:

Men: 5,000m: 1. Felix K. Kibore (Qat) 14:07.12, 2. Abdullah Ahmad Hassan (Qat) 14:08.66, 3. Abedeen Isa Ishaq (Brn) 14:18.47, 5. Surendra Singh (Ind) 14:34.90; 110m hurdles: 1. Tasuku Tanonaka (Jpn) 13.51, 2. Mohamme d Essa

Al-Thawadi (Qat) 13.55, 3. Wu Youjia (Chn) 13.68; Triple jump: 1. Renjith Maheswary (Ind) 17.19, 2. Kim Duk-Hyun (Kor) 17.00, 3. Bibu Mathew (Ind) 16.64; Javelin: 1. Chen Qi (Chn) 78.07, 2. Park Jae-Myong (Kor) 75 .77, 3. Chung Sang-Jin (Kor) 70.95; 4x100m relay: 1. Thailand 39.34, 2. Qatar 39.64, 3. China 39.71, 4. India 39.84; 4x400m relay: 1. Saudi Arabia 3:05.96, 2. Sri Lanka 3:07.29, 3. India (Sarish Paul, Joseph Abraham, Sheikh Mortaza, K.M. Binu) 3:07.94.

Women: 1,500m: 1. Sinimole Paulose (Ind) 4:25.67, 2. Sara Bekheet (Brn) 4: 26.21, 3. Truong Thanh Hang (Vie) 4:26.77, 5. Sushma Devi (Ind) 4:41.29; Pole vault: 1. Rosalinda Samsu (Mas) 4.20, 2. Rachel Yang Bing Jie ( Sin) 3.50. (third competitor, China’s Li Ling no-heighted); 4x100m relay: 1. Thailand 44.31, 2. Japan 45.06, 3. Chinese Taipei 46.48; 4x400m relay: 1. India (Mandeep Kaur, Manjeet Kaur, Sini Jose, Chitra K. Som an) 3:33.39, 2. Japan 3:33.82, 3. Kazakhstan 3:50.81.

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