Mayookha Johny‘s quest for a medal in the Asian Grand Prix series ended with a smile as she produced a big leap of 14.02m to make it the podium in the third and final leg of Asian Grand Prix series here this evening.
Mayookha, an ONGC employee, who had a disappointing season last year after improving Anju George’s national record in triple jump by just 1 cm during the national inter-state championship at Patiala, since lost the record to her Kerala state-mate M.A. Prajusha at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. She had two identical 13.71m jumps, which was 1 cm short of Prajusha’s best, in the first two legs of the Asian Grand Prix at Jiaxing and Kunshan while finished fourth and fifth respectively.But a determined Mayookha bouncing back with a record 13.97m leap in her first try-out of the evening which ensured a medal for her at Wujiang. She lost rhythm in her next four attempts leaving no mark behind as each time she overstepped the take-off board. However her sixth and final jump was perfect and she had become the first Indian woman to go beyond the magical 14m mark by registered her personal best 14.02m.China’s Xie Limei, who started with a disappointing 11.94 in her first jump, went on to win the gold in this event with a performance of 14.16m. Her teammate Li Yanmei, the winner of first leg in the Asian GP, claimed the silver with 14.05m.Seema Antil made it to podium for the third successive time with yet another bronze medal in discus throw. Her sixth round throw of 51.45m, the best out of three meetings, put her in to third place again. Chinese duo Yang Fei (59.45m) and Lin Xiaojing (56.16m) have taken the gold and silver medals in this event.Iranian Sajad Moradi made a clean sweep of wins in all the three legs of Asian GP in 800m in a time of 1:49.27.
Indians Ghamanda Ram (1:49.45) and Sajeesh Joseph (1:49.74) garnered the other medals today. It was indeed a good improvement for Sajeesh who finished fourth in the previous leg at Kunshan.Other Indian results are—Sameer Mon (100m, 6th, 10.83s), Kunhu Muhammed (400m, 6th, 48.25s), Harishankar Roy (High jump, 8th, 2.05m), Jithin Thomas (High jump, 10th, 2m), Maha Singh (Long jump, 7th, 7.35m), Arpinder Singh (Triple jump, 7th, 16.10m), Vikas Punia (Discus throw, 6th, 50.92m) among men, Devashree Majumdar (400m, 5th, 57.38s) and Suman Devi (Javelin throw, 5th, 48.67m) among women.
