Ranchi, 20 Feb 2011
The Birsa Munda athletics stadium witnessed a good turnout on Sunday evening. The fans cheered athletes from every corner of the grand sporting arena, which witnessed the opening ceremony on 12th February.
What added to an already pleasant atmosphere was the surprise arrival of Mahendra SinghDhoni, a proud resident of this town which is currently hosting the 34th National Games and a successful skipper of the Indian Cricket team that started with a winning note in the ongoing World Cup match against Bangladesh yesterday.
Just before the arrival of Dhoni, another surprise came from the tracks when Punjab’s Kuldev Singh pushed the Asian Games gold medalist Joseph G. Abraham to second place in men’s 400m hurdles. Running on the fifth lane, Joseph had a jerk in the start but quickly moved forward when the race was half-way through. When the athletes approached the home-straight Kuldev started charging Joseph. Still at the lead, the Kerala hurdler slowed a bit after clearing the final barrier. Kuldev took advantage of it and rushed towards the finish post first to secure the gold himself, posting a new Games record of 50.31 secs in that process.
Abraham finished seven-hundredths of a second behind for silver while another Punjab runner Satinder Singh was just a shade away (50.38 to 50.39) for the bronze.
In the women’s race, R. Elavarasi from Andhra Pradesh held off the challenge from Kerala girl R. Anu and hosts K.A. Soniya to win the event in 1:00.17. Anu (1:00.69) and Soniya (1:00.75) claimed the next two places respectively.
Harishankar defends high jump title
Bengal’s Harishankar Roy, represented Jharkhand this time, had some trying moments before retaining his title from Guwahati. After a marathon battle he retained the top spot on ‘count-back’. Four jumpers sailed over an identical height of 2.13m, but failed at 2.16m in all the three attempts. Jitin C. Thomas of Services and Tamil Nadu’s Benedict Starly were the joint winners of silver medal. Another TN jumper Lakshmanan Yogaraj, who also cleared 2.13m, declared fourth.
Services team earned its lone gold of the day through Sandeep Karan Singh who timed 3:48.05 to win the men’s metric mile. Kerala runner Sajeesh Joseph, the winner of 800m, finished third this evening clocking 3:48.91 behind Ravinder S. Rautela of Uttarakhand who grabbed the silver in 3:48.47.
The women’s 1500m race saw O.P. Jaisha, now donning Punjab colours, won the event from 800m winner Sushma Devi. Jaisha, originally hails from Kerala and won a bronze medal in 5000m at the Doha Asiad five years ago, ran a well-judged race to reap the benefits for winning medals from her adopted state. Jaisha stopped the clock in 4:24.14. Haryana girl Sushma Devi (4:25.69) and Jharkhand’s Jhuma Khatun (4:27.07) finished second and third respectively.
Arpinder upsets Maheswary in triple jump
Asian junior silver medalist Arpinder Singh (Punjab) was the strongman of the evening as he pocketed the men’s triple jump gold with a Games Record 16.62m. His state-mate Amarjeet Singh, another athlete who take part for hosts Jharkhand, pushed national record holder Renjith Maheswary (Kerala) to third spot by just 1 cm (16.10m to 16.09m).
In the absence of Krishna Poonia and Seema Antil, it was a cake-walk for Harwant Kaur in the women’s discus throw which she won with a moderate 54.54m throw. Haryana’s Rinku Sangwan (46.50m) and Punjab woman Baljit Kaur (44.65m) were the next two medalists.
With no major players around, Vikas Poonia won the first gold for Rajasthan through his victory in men’s discus throw (53.47). Punjab thrower Kirpal Singh (51.59m) and Uttar Pradesh’s Anshu Rai (51.35m) filled the podium behind him.
The same was the case with Punjab athlete Navpreet Kaur in heptathlon as the gold was hers when she completed the seven-discipline-event by garnering 5079 points. Kerala’s K.D. Sindhu (4844) and Tamil Nadu athlete D. Karpuramala (4728) were the other medalists in this event.
Kerala leads the medals table with 6 gold, 7 silver and 6 bronze medals at the end of the penultimate day of athletics competitions tonight.
