Indian Athletics – News – Indian women relay quartet posts Games Record for Asiad Gold

Guangzhou, China – 26 November 2010 – What a race!  It was indeed a feast for everyone who assembled at the Aoti Main Stadium in Guangzhou and those billion audiences who watched it on TV broadcasts across the continent.

India missed yet another golden chance as Preeja Sreedharan and Kavita Raut made a late kick to challenge Bahraini distance runner Mimi Belete in women’s 5000m race. Japan’s Fukushi Kayako did the front running in most of the race while the Indians as well as Bahraini runners Mimi and Kareema hang on with her. With two laps to go the Bahrainis made their move.  Mimi, who earlier won the 1500m bronze, increased the pace and the Indians trying to catch her in the last 200m.  It was a late decision to charge the leader as Mimi was in full swing at that time.  Preeja however made a gallant effort to close in but was three tenths of a second short at the post (15:15.59 to 15:15.89) with Kavita yards behind at third place in 15:16.54—all three personal bests and amazingly half a minute faster than their previous best timings!   Kudos Nikolai Snesarev, you made it happen!

Just a month after their golden glow in the Commonwealth Games at New Delhi, Indian 1600m relay quartet of Manjeet Kaur, Sini Jose, A.C. Ashwini and Mandeep Kaur gathered once again to retain the gold the national team won four years ago in Doha.

Kazakhstan’s Marina Maslyonko ran a superb opener in 49.36 secs in front of Indian national record holder Manjeet Kaur at the end of lap one.  Sini Jose at the first exchange started running the race of her life to handed-in the baton to training partner A.C. Ashwini at 1:45.91, just ahead of Victoria Yalovtseva.  Ashwini, fresh from her victory in 400m hurdles yesterday, had a marvelous third leg to maintain the lead to 2:37.23 and to anchor Mandeep Kaur.   

Olga Tereshkova, who earlier won the 400m gold for Kazakhstan and naturally the strongest in her team, started challenging when 250m to go.  Mandeep, after trailing few yards, surged past again and started pull off till the finish and stop the clock at 3:29.02 for the new Games record time.  Tereshkova came second at 3:30.03 national record for the silver while the hosts China returned a season’s best 3:30.89 for the bronze medal.  The Indian team however fell short of 3:27.77 it clocked back in Delhi for the CWG gold.

Other Indian relay quartets, however, fails to make a podium finish.  Men’s 4x100m relay team missed the bronze medal by a whisker as a slow exchange of baton between opener Rahamatulla Molla and Suresh Sathya costs the team dearly as Thailand snatched the third place 39.09 to 39.10 secs at the end.  Team China did fireworks to a national best of 38.78s for the gold while Chinese Taipei took the silver position in 39.05s.  The women’s sprint relay team of India finished fifth in 45.23 secs.  Thai athletes exhibited a class of their own to take the top spot in 44.09 secs.  China and Japan with season’s bests of 44.22 and 44.41 secs took the next two places. 

The Indian men’s 4x400m relay team too finished fourth.  Initially second when at the first exchange behind Sri Lankans, they started slip to third afterwards.  A chance for challenging the Chinese for the bronze went futile as Shake Mortaja has a shake at the final exchange owing to interruptions from runners from the leading squads scattered in front of him and thus lost some valuable seconds.  Saudi Arabians clinched the gold in another national best 3:02.30.  Japan (3:02.43), China (3:03.66) and India (3:06.49) were finished behind in that order.

Indian athletes disappointed on the field as favourites Renjith Maheswary in triple jump and Om Prakash in shot put finished fourth and thus outside the podium. 

Asian record holder and defending champion Sultan Abdulmajeed Al-Habashi of Saudi Arabia improved his Games record to 20.57m for the shot put gold after some initial hi-cups.  China’s Zhang Jun (19.59m)  and Chinese Taipei’s Chang Ming Huang (19.48m) were claimed silver and bronze medals while Om Prakash’s best turned out to be only 19.17m as he started with an unbelievable 15.88m on this evening.  The second Indian at this event, Saurabh Vij, finished sixth with a 18.93m throw which was 10 cm short of Iranian Nikfar Amin’s as he too was begun with a paltry 16.88m at the beginning.

In a similar fashion Li Yanxi retained his triple jump gold with a season’s best 16.94m.  Luck eluded Renjith for the second time since Doha as the athlete, who registered 17.07m for the Commonwealth bronze at Delhi, could not go beyond 16.76m and remain at fourth as four years ago. Kazakh Yevgeniy Ektov edged local star Cao Shuo by 2 cm (16.86 to 16.84) for the silver.  Amarjit Singh landed seventh at 16.15m.

Games records were also set by Svetlana Radzivil of Uzbekistan in women’s high jump (1.95m) and Bilisuma Shume in men’s 10,000m (27:32.72).  Indian Suresh Kumar finished eighth in 10K with a personal best time of 28:59.98.  Men’s javelin throw was won by Yukifumi Murakami of Japan with a throw of 83.15m. Indians Rajender Singh (74.70m) and Kashinath Naik (73.96m) have been finished sixth and eighth respectively.

/ Ram. Murali Krishnan /

Indian Athletics – News