The Hindu : Sport : Vinod wins heptathlon gold

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Nov 02, 2007
ePaper

Sport

Sport

Vinod wins heptathlon gold

3 silvers for India

FILE Photo

P.J. Vinod. —

MACAU: P. J. Vinod expectedly claimed the heptathlon gold as India swelled its medal tally to 18 in the Asian Indoor Games here on Thursday.

Overnight seventh in the medals standings, India moved to the fifth place on Thursday with athletes contributing the bulk of the medals. China led the standings with a total of 87 medals including 47 gold, followed by Hong Kong China with 27 including 11 gold.

Thailand was third with 51 medals (10 gold) while Kazakhstan stood fourth with 37 medals including nine gold.

India’s medal haul of six gold, six silver and six bronze so far included three silver medals from athletics on Thursday.

Surendra Singh in 3000m and Sinimole Paulose and Preeja Sreedharan in women’s 800m and 3000m respectively were the silver medal winners.

Of the six bronze medals, the snooker team of Manan Chandra, Alok Kumar and Yasin Merchant contributed one late Wednesday while Dronavalli Harika added one from women’s individual classical chess on Thursday.

The other bronze medals were contributed by athletes Ramesan Rajeev (800m), Sunil Kumar (3000m), A. Vijila (women’s 800m) and the women’s 4x400m relay team on Thursday.

Vinod’s march towards the heptathlon gold, his first medal at the continental level, was smooth and unchallenged, though Pavel Dubitskiy of Kazakhstan, who came second, did put up a valiant fight in the last event, 1000m in which Vinod came only fourth.

The Kerala athlete won the 60m hurdles (8.14s) and pole vault (4.50m) and was on 4,882 points to Dubitskiy’s 4,687 with the final event to go. In the end, Vinod settled for 5561 points and Dubitskiy had 5,432 while Thai Chalon Boonkete took the bronze with 5,046.

India had to settle for minor medals in men and women’s 800 metres though there could have been some hope that at least Sinimole would come through with another gold to add to the one she had in the 1,500m.

But that did not happen as Chinese Liu Qing, the No. 2 in continental rankings last year, who did not compete in the Asian outdoor championships in Amman last July, coasted to a 2:06.13 victory in a close finish.

Sinimole was just a stride behind in 2:06.32 while Vijila, a junior, won her first major medal, clocking 2:06.75 for the bronze.

Rajeev third

In the men’s 800m, the spotlight was on the Indians Sajeesh Joseph and Rajeev.

But the more experienced Mohamed Mutlak Al-Azimi of Kuwait (1:49.62) and Iranian Ehsan Mohajershojaei (1:50.22) won the battle for gold and silver with Rajeev (1:50.87) coming third and Sajeesh (1:51.41) fourth.

Disappointment was in store for the Indian athletics team when National record holder Renjith Maheswary finished seventh in triple jump with just 15.59m and Saurabh Vij ended up ninth in shot put with only 16.75m.

Vailyev’s wins gold

Roman Vailyev of Kazakhstan claimed the triple jump gold with 16.57m.

Though he managed to go up to 2.18 in high jump, Bengal boy Hari Sankar Roy had to settle for the fourth place. Rashid Ahmed Al-Mannai of Qatar set a games record of 2.24 for the gold while Kazakh Sergey Zasimovich, the favourite, took the silver with 2.21, the same as bronze winner Kim Young Min of Korea.

Though the women’s team of Anu Mariam Jose, Vijila, Sini Jose and M. R. Poovamma managed the bronze in the 4x400m relay (3:41.09), behind Kazakhstan (3:37.59) and Thailand (3:38.25), the men’s team failed, finishing fifth in 3:16.81.

Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka clocked the same time of 3:11.29 in a photo-finish for the games record with the former getting the gold.

Swimmers disappoint

Indian swimmers continued to disappoint with Shikha Tandon (1:06.54) coming seventh in the women’s 100m back-stroke event and Rehan Poncha (56.45) ending fourth in the men’s 100m backstroke final.

In billiards, Geet Sethi made the final, beating Peter Gilchrist of Singapore and will meet Thai Praput Chaitanasakun on Friday.

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