Bhubaneswar: Javelin exponent Neeraj Chopra created a new meet record and Archana Adhav lost out on a gold medal after being disqualified, yet India created history by bagging achieving their best-ever medal haul in the Asian Athletics Championships, which concluded here Sunday.
India for the first time in the history of the championships finished with 29 medals, including 12 gold medals. Their previous best was at Jakarta in 1985 (22 medals) including 12 gold. China finished second in AAC2017 with 20 medals (8g, 7s and 5b) while Kazakhstan were third with eight medals (4g, 2s, 2b).
The hosts couldn’t have hoped for a better concluding day. India got eight medals Sunday comprising five gold, one silver and three bronze medals.
The stars of the day were no doubt Neeraj Chopra and G Lakshmanan. The former, a junior world record holder in javelin was expected to win gold, but he left it to the very last throw – his throw of 85.23m setting a new meet record and dashing the hopes of Qatari BA Ahmed of Qatar who till then was leading the pack with his best throw of 83.70m in the fourth attempt. Neeraj’s compatriot Davinder Singh Kang got the bronze with an effort of 83.29m.
Prior to that disaster had struck the hosts side after Archana was disqualified of the 800 metres gold. Archana, the unheralded 22-year-old from Pune had finished the race in a time of 2:05 seconds. However, she was stripped of the gold as Sri Lankan Nimali Konda (who had finished second) complained that the Indian had obstructed her during the final sprint. The jury reviewed footage of the race and found Archana guilty of elbowing the Sri Lankan and as a result, India lost out on a gold medal.
But then Lakshmanan achieved the unique long distance double to cheer up the spectators. The Tamil Nadu athlete finished the last 150m of the 10,000m race like a sprinter to run away with the gold in a time of 29:55.87 seconds. He had earlier won the 5,000m gold also. Compatriot Gopi Thonakal made it one-two for India by winning silver with a time of 29:58.89s.
“I could not win a single gold in the two events in the earlier edition of the tournament in Wuhan, China (2015) but since then I have improved a lot. Though the timings were slow due to humid conditions, I’m happy to have won two gold medals for the country. I hope to improve my best timing in the World Championships,” Lakshmanan said after winning the gold.
Earlier Swapna Barman had given India a gold in heptathlon with compatriot Purnima Hembram finishing third.
India’s fourth gold of the day came when the quartet of Kunju Muhammed, Muhammad Anas, Amoj Jacob and Arokia Rajiv sprinted to glory in the men’s 4×400 relay. They won the race in 3:02.92 seconds. Sri Lanka and Thailand teams finished with the silver and bronze respectively.
Following up on the success of the men’s team, the women quartet of Nirmala Sheoran, M Povamma, Jisna Mathew and Debashree Mazumdar clocked 3:31.34s to run away winners in the 4x400m relay – the last event of the meet.
Jinson Johnson also bagged bronze in the men’s 800m earlier to swell India’s tally in the medals table.
