Athletes keep medal-hunting on track

The rich harvest of seven medals on the day, including a bronze in billiards, took India’s tally to 17 — six gold, five silver and six bronze medals — and kept the country in the ninth position on the table even as the Asian powerhouse China crossed the 100-gold mark.

After the first week’s disappointments, the athletes led India’s resurgence with Beenamol claiming the honour in the women’s 800m and Bahadur Singh putting up a stellar show to clinch the top honour in men’s shot put event. Besides the two gold medals, Madhuri Singh (women’s 800m) and Soma Biswas (heptathlon) won silver medals while the seasoned Shakti Singh (shot put) and JJ Shobha (heptathlon) added bronze medals to swell India’s kitty.

Though Beenamol did not come anywhere near her personal best of 2:04.07, which she set at the New Delhi Open meet last month, she was the pick of the pack as she gave a good exhibition of what a tactical race means with a timing of 2:04.17 secs.

With Madhuri brilliantly setting the pace for her, the 27-year-old Beenamol, who was in the fifth position till the last 100m of the two-lap race, surged forward to leave her rivals well behind. Madhuri grabbed the silver in 2:04.94 while Uzbekistan’s Zamira Amirova took home the bronze medal in 2:05.05 secs.

‘‘It’s a great feeling to have won the gold for the country. It was not such a tough race as I expected. I could have done better,’’ Beenamol said after the race. The Railway runner gave a lot of credit to teammate Madhuri for setting up the race for her well. ‘‘She did very well and since the the whole race was quite slow, I did not have much difficulty in the final stretch,’’ she said.

Before she won the women’s 800M, Beenamol also booked her berth in the final of her favourite 400m race, finishing third in the heats with time of 53.21 secs. Her best time in the event is 51.47 secs. India’s second entry Jincy Philips also entered the final finishing second in the first heat returning a time of 53.88 seconds.

In the men’s section, Beenamol’s younger brother and national champion KM Binu entered the final of men’s 800m. His time of 1: 47.63 secs was the second best among the 12 finalists behind the 1:47.61 recorded by China’s Li Huiquan. In the men’s 400m, P Ramachandran entered the final but Paramjeet Singh (47.50) bowed out in the semi-final. The two Indians running in the second semis finished fourth and fifth. Ramachandran’s time of 47.42 seconds got him the eighth and last berth in the final.

Bahadur Singh managed to get just one throw right but that (19.03m) was good enough to give him the gold. Competing in the same event, Shakti Singh grabbed the bronze medal on account of a better second best attempt despite tieing with a competitor from Kuwait. ‘‘I just wanted to put everything for the sake of the country, I am glad that it has borne fruit. I am very happy that I could win the gold,’’ Bahadur said.

The women heptathletes also did the country proud as Soma Biswas (5899 pts) and JJ Shoba (5870 pts) claimed the silver and bronze medal, respectively, to complete a satisfying day for the Indians. The gold went to China’s Shengfei Shen who accumulated a total of 5911 points.

India’s Saraswati Saha took the seventh spot in the women’s 100m clocking 11.59s, an effort which would not make her too happy since she is capable of returning better timings. In the men’s hammer, Pramod Tiwari finished sixth with a throw of 64.54m in his fifth attempt.