Indian Athletes win 4 gold, 1 silver and 4 bronze in the first leg of Asian Athletics Grand Prix held in Bangkok.
Asian Grand Prix: India wins four Gold in 1st Leg
Indian Athletes produced a stellar performance in the 2012 Asian Grand Prix being held in Thailand. The first of three legs in Asian Athletics Grand Prix held at Bangkok yesterday on May 8th. Two of Indian Athletics Sajeesh Joseph and M R Poovamma missed the Olympic qualification narrowly despite winning the gold in their respective events.
Sajeesh Joseph clocked 1:47.78 in 800M to beat the Iraq man Adnan Taes to clinch the gold medal while Poovamma produced her career best timing of 52.94 seconds in 400M race on her way to the gold. However, Joseph needs to come under 1:46:31 and M R Poovamma target is 52.35 seconds to earn the Olympic berth in their respective categories.
India’s other two gold medals came in 4×400 relay from both men and women. Indian men’s team of B Mathew, J Paul, S K Mortaja and P Kunhumohammad clocked 3:08.00 in 4x400M relay to finish first but the same squad can only manage to finish third in 4x100M relay. Women’s squad of S Chand, D Mazumdar, R Kaur and Poovamma clocked rather unimpressive 3:38.76 for the gold in 4×400 which had only two nation participation. In 4×100 relay event, Women’s team fared poorly finishing at lowly fourth.
The high jumper Sahana Kumari wins silver crossing 1.89M, which is well below the Olympic target of 1.92M while the Triple jumper Renjith Maheswary won the bronze medal with his effort of 16.03M. Though Renjith had already qualified for Olympics, the effort of 16.03M is very bad considering his last month Olympic qualification jump of 16.85M. He should look to up his performance and start generating momentum for the ultimate event in 78 days.
The two other bronze medals came in 800M race from Ghamnada Ram and Sinimole Paulose in men and women category respectively. The other Indian athletics in the grand prix who participated in the first leg but failed to win any medal are Mayookha Johny (Long Jump), Singh Arpinder (Triple Jump), Sharma Ankit (Long Jump) and Ajay Kumar(400M).
Although Asian Athletic Grand Prix is contested with very few numbers of participants in each category, the most important thing to look up is, this one comes under the Olympic qualification tournament. For Indian Athletics, it’s their big chance to book the ticket for London by meeting the Olympic standard norm mentioned in their category.
With two more legs to follow on May 11th and May 14th respectively, our athletics eye must be firmly on Olympic qualification more than winning medals for once.
The Sports Mirror wishes all of them best of luck!
Tags: Asian Grand Prix 2012, Athletes, India, M.R. Poovamma, Sajeesh Joseph
