After first day''s high, Indian athletes draw blank

Mon, Nov 22 10 07:08 PM

S S Ramaswamy Guangzhou, Nov 22 (PTI) After opening their track and field campaign in a spectacular fashion with two gold and a silver yesterday, Indian athletes came a cropper today as they failed to collect a single medal on the second day of the competitions here. Medal prospects Mandeep Kaur and Manjeet Kaur finished disappointing fourth and fifth with below-par performances in women''s 400m final at the Aoti Main Stadium. One-lap racer Mandeep Kaur, the leading timer in Asia this season and drawn on the outside lane seven, led the field till the back stretch before flagging behind to finish fourth in 52.99 secs. Defending champion Olga Tereshkova of Kazakhstan left the entire bunch behind at the final stretch and crossed the finish line in 51.97secs, her season''s best. Japan''s Asami Chiba improved upon her bronze in 2006 Asian Games in Doha by bagging the silver in 52.68 while the bronze went to another Kazakh Marina Maslyonko (52.70). National record holder Manjeet, gold medallist in 2002 at Busan and silver medallist four years later in Doha, finished a poor fifth in 53.27, two seconds below her personal best. In women''s hammer throw, national record holder Hardeep Kaur started with a foul attempt before attaining her best effort of the day, 60.54m in her third attempt, to finish fourth. The Indian''s effort was 2.40m less than bronze medallist Yuka Murofushi of Japan. It was an improvement on the police officer''s 2006 performance where she had finished sixth. China made a 1-2 with defending champion and Beijing Olympics bronze medallist Zhang Wenxiu taking the gold with 72.84m and Wang Zheng (68.17m) grabbing the silver. Yesterday, Preeja Sridharan and Kavita won a gold and a silver in women''s 10000m race while Sudha Singh added another yellow metal in women''s 3000m steeplechase to give India a rousing start to the athletics campaign. But today, India drew a blank from athletics with only men''s 1500m runners Chatholi Hamza and Sandeep Karan Singh advancing to the finals. Indian men sprinters Mohammed Najeeb Qureshi and Krishnakumar Rane both failed to advance to the men''s 100m final after finishing fourth by both in the semifinals. Qureshi jumped out of the blocks slow to finish fourth in heat number three in 10.46secs while Rane clocked an even poorer 10.62 in heat number two while ending up fourth. In women''s 100m sprint, H M Jyothi of India took the last spot in semifinal heat number two, clocking a pathetic 11.98 and was eliminated from the final. .

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