Hamza, Sinimol strike gold

Chatholi Hamza won the men’s 1,500m final with a new Games record, while Sinimol Paulose proved her continental superiority in the women’s section again, as India added two more gold medals to the tally in the 2nd Indoor Asian Games here today. Hamza produced a superlative show to stun defending champion Kamal Ali of Qatar and it was his run in the last 50m that helped him to win his first major title at the Asian level with a new games record of 3:50.22sec.

Sinimol, who had a title hat-trick at the Asian Grand Prix series followed by the Asian Championship at Amman, timed 4:22.56sec to finish ahead of Svetlana Lukasheva of Kazakhstan and Chinese Li Zhenzhu in the final. Sinimol had won the bronze in the inaugural edition of the Asian Indoor Games in 2005 at Pattaya. In the men’s 400m, however, India returned empty-handed as both Bibin Mathew and Vinay Chaudhary failed to make it to the final, finishing fourth in their respective semi-finals.