The Hindu : Sport / Athletics : Harwant Kaur qualifies for Beijing Olympics

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Sport - Athletics

Harwant Kaur qualifies for Beijing Olympics

K. P. Mohan

Athletics / Mandeep Kaur clocks career best in 400m

In all nine Indian athletes have qualified so far
Double for Poonam Tomar and O. P. Jaisha

— Photo: M. Moorthy

MAKING THE CUT: Discus thrower Harwant Kaur qualified for the Beijing Olympics with a last-round throw of 61.09 metres in the National inter-State athletics championships at Madurai on Tuesday.

MADURAI: Woman discus thrower Harwant Kaur joined an enlarging list of Beijing Olympic qualifiers on Tuesday by pulling off a last-round throw of 61.09 metres in the 38th National inter-State athletics championships at the MGR Stadium here.

Harwant joins Krishna Poonia as the second Indian qualifier in discus since both have the 61-metre standard. Poonia had posted a 63.41 in Salinas, US, last month.

In all nine Indian athletes have qualified so far. The coaches’ predictions are coming true. Come June, the qualification race for Beijing Olympics was expected to hot up; the athletes were ‘primed’ to reach season bests and personal bests.

Harwant just proved that on Tuesday with her best in three years after Mandeep Kaur ran a blistering lap of 51.74 seconds to register her personal best.

Dream sequence

In what turned out to be dream sequence for Harwant, the Punjab woman reeled off 59.50, 60.84, 60.37, 60.22, 60.69 before touching the ‘A’ qualifying standard with a last-ditch effort.

Harwant promised to go farther in the Asian Grand Prix meets, but one woman who was expected to reach a standard in discus on Tuesday, Seema Antil, failed to find her touch. The National record holder had a best of 58.22 that was in keeping with her recent form.

In an incredible improvement over a short period of time, Mandeep, obviously benefiting from the training stint in Ukraine, went past her Yalta performance (51.80) while leaving the rest of the field way behind in the 400 metres. Chitra Soman was second in 52.71 while Satti Geetha came home in 53.89 for the bronze.

From the relay team’s perspective, the injury suffered by National record holder Manjeet Kaur, who pulled up after the 100-metre mark, should be very disheartening. The extent of her injury was not known as she was taken to hospital, but her right hamstring was the one apparently affected. Manjeet could have been expected to dip below 52 seconds.

Surprise leader

Pramila Aiyappa was the surprise leader at the half-way stage in heptathlon, with 3473 points. J. J. Shobha (3460) and Susmita Singha Roy (3446) followed.

Poonam Tomar and O. P. Jaisha completed doubles. Poonam won the 200 metres to add to the 100m gold while Jaisha, making her steeplechase debut won untroubled in a meet record time. She had earlier claimed the 1500 metres.

The results:

Men: 200m: 1. Vlas Neelgund (AP) 21.38, 2. P. Muthuswamy (TN) 21.76, 3. Ritesh Anand (Jharkhand) 21.87; 800m: 1. Prakash Verma (Delhi) 1:51.58, 3. Naresh Yadav (Gujarat) 1:51.77, 3. Arun K. J. (Kerala) 1:52.15; 3000m steeplechase: 1. Om Prakash (Gujarat) 8:46.92 (NMR, previous 8:50.71), 2. Elam Singh (Jharkhand) 8:47.37, 3. Ravinder Singh (Gujarat) 9:28.79; Long jump: 1. Maha Singh (Punjab) 7.57, 2. Shamsher Pratap Singh (Punjab) 7.56, 3. Rajeev Kumar (Delhi) 7.51; Javelin: 1. Kashinath Nayak (Jharkhand) 72.22, 2. Amit Majumdar (Bihar) 70.32, 3. Anil Kumar (Haryana) 69.01; 20,000m walk: 1. Satya Narayan (Chhattisgarh) 1:34:27.48, 2. Ashok Kumar Patel (Chhatisgarh) 1:36:22.14, 3. Satya Narayan (Rajasthan) 1:43:56.49; Decathlon: 1. P. J. Vinod (Kerala) 7150, 2. Daya Ram (Jharkhand) 7023, 3. Vikram Singh (Punjab) 6718.

Women: 200m: 1. Poonam Tomar (Delhi) 24.64, 2. H. M. Jyothi (AP) 25.02, 3. R. Elavarasi (TN) 25.26; 400m: 1. Mandeep Kaur (Punjab) 51.74 (NMR, previous 52.20), 2. Chitra Soman (Jharkhand) 52.71, 3. S. Geetha (AP 53.89; 800m: 1. A. Vijila (Kerala) 2:06.80, 2. Sunita (Delhi) 2:07.73, 3. Priyanka Singh Patel (UP) 2:0.77; 3000m steeplechase: 1. O. P. Jaisha (Kerala) 10:20.15 (NMR, previous 10:44.65), 2. Sudha Singh (Jharkhand) 10:29.94, 3. Kiran Tiwari (Uttarakhand) 10:51.42; Discus: 1. Harwant Kaur (Punjab) 61.09, 2. Seema Antil (Haryana) 58.22, 3. Parbati Sethi (Orissa) 45.09.