Beenamol, hockey team bring cheer

Sydney, September 23: India was back in the Olympic Games on Saturday. Yet another great run by KM Beenamol and the hockey team's thrillin...

Sydney, September 23: India was back in the Olympic Games on Saturday. Yet another great run by KM Beenamol and the hockey team8217;s thrilling win over Spain brought cheer to the depressed Indian camp. Indian spirits were quite low after the defeat of tennis duo Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi in the second round of the doubles competition.

The hockey team had to beat Spain to stay in the reckoning. They stopped the Spanish armada 3-2 and now wait for their last pool engagement against Poland on Tuesday. If they win the match, they will be through to the semi-finals.

quot;We could have played better today,quot; said Baskaran, the team coach, after the match. One hopes his words are prophetic come Tuesday. Before the match, there was a lot of tension in the stadium following a scuffle between fans from India and Pakistan. The police had to be called in, but the situation was soon brought under control.

At night, under the arc lights of the Olympic Stadium at Homebush, it wasBeenamol who gladdened Indian hearts by entering the semi-finals of the women8217;s 400 metres. Drawn in lane four, after returning last night8217;s first round heat8217;s fastest time 51.51 seconds Beenamol ran a tactically poor race. She failed to judge the pace, running the first half a little too fast, but still managed to pip Olabisi Afolabi of Nigeria for the place in the semi-finals.

Her 51.81 second effort was enough to push her into tomorrow8217;s semi-finals. The fact that she ran two consecutive hard races in as many days and still clocked close to her personal best of 51.21 says a lot for this Kerala girl. In the semi-finals, she will be running against world champion Cathy Freeman of Australia and six other top runners in the world.

She has to finish in the first four to make it to the final. A tough task. But if she does enter the final, she will become the second Indian woman athlete to achieve the distinction of entering the final of an athletics event in the Olympic Games.

National coach Bahadur Singh said Beenamol ran quot;alrightquot; but quot;we are notused to running two or three race in three days and this may affect herpeformance in the semi-finals.quot;

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Two other Indian Indian athletes featured today were Soma Biswas andG Pramila 8212; both in the heptathlon. After the first day8217;s four events, Pramila was placed 23rd with 3308 points while Soma was two places behind with 3287 points. The overnight leader was N Sazanovich of Belarus at 3903 points.

Tomorrow, Indian light-heavyweight boxer Gurcharan Singh will also fighthis second round bout, but the focus will be more on Beenamol.