Guangzhou, China – 21 November 2010
Women athletes made the country proud when they took 2 gold and 1 silver medals on the opening day of athletics competitions in 16th Asian Games here today.
Distance running stars Preeja Sreedharan and Kavita Raut came from behind to made it 1-2 in the 10,000m with personal best timings of 31:50.47 and 31:51.44 respectively. Bahrain’s 20-year-old Shitaye Eshete, who briefly led the race after Japanese duo Kayoko Fukushi and Hikari Yoshimoto, took the bronze medal, clocking yet another personal best of 31:53.27.
Kavita, who won a bronze medal behind Kenyans at the recently concluded Commonwealth Games at New Delhi last month, was familiar in Guangzhou as she already won two medals – silver in 10000m and a bronze in 5000m – at the same during the Asian championships last year.
Preeja, who had a disappointing seventh place at Delhi CWG, ran a well judged race to take over her rivals on the waning moments of the race and improved her national mark by nearly 15 seconds to grab the gold medal.
The Indian camp was in celebration again when steeplechaser Sudha Singh brought the second gold of the day as she too improved upon her national mark set during CWG to return a time of 9:55.67 for the top spot. Unlike in the 10000m, Sudha along with training partner O.P. Jaisha took the field and changed the lead between them right from the beginning. However a tired Jaisha finished fifth at the end with a time of 10:18.97.
China’s Yuan Jin, who challenged Sudha at the last lap, settled with a silver as she finished four hundredths of a second behind the Indian (9:55.71). Japan’s Minori Hayakari went home with the bronze medal in 10:01.25.
In men’s 5000m final, Sunil Kumar posted a season’s best 14:01.76 but it was not enough for a medal. Bahrain’s Mahboob Ali Hasan won the event in 13:47.86.
Earlier in the morning Harminder Singh (1::26:33) and Baljinder Singh (1::28:06) finished sixth and seventh places respectively in the men’s 20 Km race walking. China’s Hao Wang won the gold in this event (1::20:50) ahead of teammate Chu Yafei (1::21:57) and Korean Kim Hyunsub (1::22:47).
In the qualifying competitions, high jumper Harishankar Roy qualified for final with a jump of 2.10m while another Indian Nikhil Chittarasu could not make despite the fact that he too cleared an identical height, but with more attempts.
However sprinter H.M. Jyothi was lucky to qualify in women’s 100m although she finished fifth in her heat. Abdul Najeeb Qureshi and Krishnakumar Rane were moved to next round in men’s 100m.
In 400m, both Mandeep and Manjeet Kaur advanced to next round in the women’s section but Bibin Mathew and Shake Mortaja were shockingly out in the men’s heats fail to qualify further.
Other prominent winners of the day include Dilshod Nazarov of Tajikistan in hammer throw and Li Ling of China in women’s shot put.
