Decent start for the medal hunt

Anil Kumar Sangwan gave more reason for the Indian supporters to cheer by finishing third behind Gowda while his name sake and the national record holder — Anil Kumar — entered the 100m final with a strong hope of a medal on Friday. So did S Geetha and Manjeet Kaur — both potential medal winners in the 400 metres final.

‘‘Yes I am indeed disappointed because I wanted to win here,’’ he said.

‘‘I thought he would give me gold,’’ added his father Shive Gowda, a former national-level discus thrower.

But both father and son reconciled to the fact that losing to Ehsan was no disgrace.

Last year, the Iranian had become a junior world champion in Grosseto and in the Monhak Stadium on Thursday the Tehran athlete threw 65.25 metres to set an Asian record.

Interestingly, for both Ehsan and Vikas, the winning throws were their first attempts. Twenty-year-old Ehsan opened with a 65.25 while Vikas had a throw of 62.84. ‘‘I think Vikas was not prepared for a big opening round by Ehsan and lost concentration,’’ said his father-cum-coach Shive.

The son now wants to concentrate on strength training, an area which the father feels is a weak link in Vikas’ armoury.

For someone who reached here only last night from his training base in Europe, Anil Kumar managed a decent throw of 59.95. it proved to be a satisfactory performance. Hot on his national record-breaking run at Delhi’s Nehru Stadium last week, Anil first ran 10:52 and then 45 minutes later was timed 10:46 in the final.

On both occasions, he had former Asian champion Nobuharu Asahara of Japan giving him company in the adjacent lane.

S Geetha lived up to her reputation, emerging as the fastest qualifier in the 400 metres event with an impressive 52.83 second effort. In another heat, Manjit Kaur also made it to the final. She was relatively slower though at 53.12.

‘‘I should be cracking 52 second barrier in the final,’’ said Geetha, a talented girl from Andhra.