Indian Athletics – News – 3rd Lusofonia Games / Ram. Murali Krishnan /

 

Kurt Couto of Mozambique, the winner of men’s 400m hurdles in the inaugural edition of the Lusofonia Games at Macau in 2006 but had a disappointing third place finish in Lisbon three years ago, regained champion status in his favourite event here at GMC Athletics Stadium, Bambolin.

Holding a very strong national mark of 49.02 secs, under his belt, Couto was incidentally the hot favourite to win the Gold here which he did so efficiently by aptly aided by teammate Creve Machava, who made it 1-2 for the Mozambique.  The former World University Games medallist however clocked only 51.97 secs hence his Games Record 50.29s remain intact.

 

Another athlete who evolved from bronze position to the ‘numero uno’ place here was Holder da Silva of Guinea-Bissau in men’s 200m.  After two bronze medals in 100 and 200m in Macau and another bronze in the longer sprint in 2009, Silva went on to win the gold with a huge margin and that too with a New Games Record time of 21.40 secs as the winner’s time of 20.64s in the Lisbon meet four years ago was wind-assisted.    Incidentally his was the first Games Record being broken at Goa and his winning margin of 0.55 secs was also the biggest ever in the Games’ history for this event.

Indian sprinter C. Renjitha takes away the women’s title in a modest 25 secs with Cape Verde Islands’

 

Alberto Mamba of Moazambique completes a “distance double” by adding the 800m gold to his first day’s 1500m.  Indian Lalit Mathur’s effort to catch him on the final straight went futile as Mamba won in 0.40 secs ahead of him in 1:53.96.

 

Angola’s Felismina, who finished second behind Indian metric miler P.U. Chitra on the opening day, went on to win the women’s 800m this evening.

 

Indian women took the first two places in triple jump which saw a keen contest between four competitors.  Sri Lankan N.C.D. Priyadharshani, national record-holder with a PB of 13.15m, had a disappointing fourth place with a paltry 12.09m mark.  Indian junior champion Bhairabi Roy and silver medallist M.A. Siva Anbarasi had ‘no mark’ on the first round.  Anbarasi leaped to 12.31m on the second round to emerge as an event leader until Roy put up a better display by registering a personal best 12.48m on the fourth.  Portugal’s Vanessa Rocha snatched the bronze medal with her last round 12.15m from the Lankan.