Indian athletes bag seven medals on day
Bhubaneswar: It turned out to be a fruitful day for India as they finished the day with two gold medals, one silver and four bronze medals on the opening day of the 22nd Asian Athletics Championships here Thursday. The tally took them to the top of the medals tally after the end of day one.
The first gold medal was won by Manpreet Kaur in women’s shot put while the second was bagged by G Lakshmanan in the 5,000m , the silver in long jump was bagged by V Neena and the bronze medals were won by Vikas Gowda in men’s discus, Nayana James in women’s long jump, Sanjivini Yadav in the women’s 5,000m and Annu Rani in women’s javelin.
Manpreet was way ahead of her competitors and won the gold hurling the iron ball to a distance of 18.28m in her third attempt. Even though she fouled her last three attempts, the distance she acquired with her third throw made her birthday doubly special. Manpreet had thrown 17.52m in her first attempt.
Chinese girl Guo TianQian had all correct throws but could never break the 18 metres barrier, though she consistently hurled the ball above 17m. Her silver-winning throw was 17.91m in her fourth attempt. Japan’s Aya Oja was way behind in third with a throw of 15.45m. Anamika Das (14.96) and Ramanpreet Kaur (14.91) were fifth and seventh respectively.
Manpreet, who turned 27 Thursday, upstaged defending champion Tianqian to give herself a perfect birthday gift at the packed Kalinga Stadium. She did a lap of honour with the Indian Tricolour as the spectators stood up in unison to applaud her feat.
“This is the second best throw of my career and I am very happy. I had told myself that I should go beyond the 18-metre mark before the event and it has been very satisfying to achieve it,” Manpreet said after her lap of honour.
The 27-year-old Lakshmanan did not start a favourite in the men’s 5,000m, but stunned the entire field, completing the distance in 14 minutes 54.58 seconds. It was a stupendous effort considering the fact that he had won bronze in the last edition at Wuhan, China in 2015.
However, in men’s discus, Gowda failed to defend his title but grabbed a bronze with a best effort of 60.81m. His long-time nemesis at the Asian circuit, Ehsan Haddadi of Iran took the gold with a best throw of 64.54m while Malaysia’s Muhammad Irfan won the silver with 60.96m.
Meanwhile, Bui Thie Thu with a jump of 6.54m. She achieved the mark in her first attempt and even though she fouled her next four jumps it was enough for her to win the gold. Neena also achieved the same distance but she was adjudged second as the wind speed behind her was more than what Thu had when she managed the distance. James could only manage a best leap of 6.42m. The other Indian competitor D Karthika finished 10th.
In men’s pole vault, the gold went to Ding Bangchao of China who crossed the beam at 5.40m.