AFI News Results: Asian Grand Prix 3 Chennai

Chennai, June 9:Athletes Manikanda Raj, Joseph Abraham and Gajanan Upadhyay have all maintained their unbeaten record in their respective events as the third leg of Indian Grand Prix series complete its six event schedule at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here this afternoon.

Krisna Poonia

The above athletes virtually had no opposition of any worth but still managed to perform modestly to win their third gold medal of the series.Running under Jharkhand flag Manikanda Raj clocked 21.69 secs in 200m, slower than his 21.38 in the altitude-aid Bangalore leg, but way ahead from the second placed S. Srinivas of Andhra Pradesh.On the contrary, Joseph Abraham posted a season’s best 50.24 secs to win the 400m hurdles. A semi-finalist in the World championships at Osaka in 2007, Abraham is expected to attain his peak during the Commonwealth Games at New Delhi this October.Javelin thrower Kashinath Naik, the reigning South Asian Games champion, was another athlete who registered a seasonal best 75.23m to win his event.Vaulting ace Gajanan Upadhyay, who scaled 5.02m to win the Federation Cup at Ranchi earlier this year and aiming to break Vijay Pal Singh’s 23-year-old national mark of 5.10m, has three failed attempts in 5m today and had to be content with a 4.90m clearance for the gold medal.In a sea-saw battle at the long jump arena, Reshmi Bose emerged as a winner with a 6.32m jump. Mayookha Johny won the first leg in Pune and M A Prajusha took the next one in Bangalore. With today’s show, the trio now figured as a new emerging force in Indian athletics.

Tintu Luka avenged her defeat while facile victory for Krishna Poonia in Asian Grand PrixIndia’s Krishna Poonia, currently ranked ninth in the World lists, made it easy when she completes a hat-trick of victories in the Asian Grand Prix series this year. A throw of 59.94m was just enough for her to win the gold. Krishna underwent a training-cum-competition stint at the United States under the watchful eyes of former Olympian Mac Wilkins and achieved a PB of 63.69m while winning a silver medal in a contest at Chula Vista in April this year. She is presently ranked third among the athletes from the commonwealth nations and second in Asia behind the Chinese thrower Li Yanfeng (65.20m). In commonwealth, Australian Dani Samuels (65.84) and South African Elizna Naude (64.49) are ahead of her.On the contrary, in the women’s 800m, Tintu Luka avenged her defeat to Kazakhstan’s Margarita Matsko with an all out effort. Tintu was second at the first leg in Pune with a time of 2:03.14. But this evening she adopted a typical strategy to win from Kazakh in 2:03.67. It is to be noted that she had achieved a personal best 2:01.61 while winning the national championship at Kochi, less than a month ago. A silver medalist in the last Asian junior championships at Jakarta, Tintu currently ranked 27th in the world and is among the medal probables for both Commonwealth and Asian Games.Despite their fine form, Indian triple jumper Renjith Maheswary and shot putter Om Prakash Singh have suffered shock defeats.Renjith fails to find his rhythm and hence could not go beyond 16.60m. China’s Wu Bo had won the top spot with a 16,73m effort.This evening Om Prakash tossed the iron ball to 18.45m, 19 cm shot of China’s Zhang Jun, for the silver.Among others, Toea Wisil from Papua New Guinea provided a stunner as she halted Guzel Khubbieva’s unbeaten record in the women’s 100m. India’s H M Jyothi took the bronze medal. Indonesian sprinter Surya Agung Wibowo won the men’s crown.In yet another thrilling race, Wisil’s teammate Nelson Stone edged S K Mortaza of India 47.01 to 47.29 to win the 400m. Iranian half-miler Sajad Moradi improved the meet mark with 1:47.28 in 800m, where Indians Pankaj Dimri and Ghamanda Ram took the next two places.Malaysian high jumper Lee Hup Wei sailed over 2.27m to equal his career best and to win the event from China’s Wang Chen (2.24). Nikhil Chittarasu of India was third.

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