India bring home the baton, but get one on the knuckles

It was a mixed day for the Indian athletes on the final day of the Games. Sunita Rani’s positive dope test overshadowed some good perfo...

It was a mixed day for the Indian athletes on the final day of the Games. Sunita Rani’s positive dope test overshadowed some good performances by the athletes. India ended the Games with 17 medals – including seven gold – which was better than their performances at the last Games in Bangkok.


Members of India’s 4x400m relay team rejoice after winning the silver. (Reuters)

The best performance of the day came from the women’s 4×400 meters relay team despite having Manjit Kaur as a weak link in the quartet. Jincy Phillips gave a good start to the team by bringing the baton along with leaders Kazakhstan. But the second runner, Manjit, failed to maintain the lead. Soma Biswas covered a lot of ground to forge ahead and by the time KM Beenamol got the baton the race was already decided. Beenamol ran a brilliant final leg to help the Indian team record a time of 3:30.84, narrowly missing the Games mark of 3:29:11. The Indian victory added one more gold to Beenamol’s personal tally and she became one of the most successful athletes of the Games having won two gold and one silver.

Of her performance Beenamol said, ‘‘I had kept my 800 metres gold in front of the picture of Mother Mary but I have removed it because someone’s medal was stolen. I don’t want to lose it,’’ she said.

The men’s 4x400m relay team despite a good race had to content with a silver. The foursome of P Ramachandran, Manoj Lal, Satbir Singh and Bhupendra Singh clocked 3:04.22 against the winners Saudi Arabia’s performance of 3:02.47.

Discus thrower Anil Kumar had come to Busan after a long training stint in Hungary with high hope. But his throw of 59.18 metres, watched by his Hungarian coach Pal Nemeth from the stand, fetched him a bronze.

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‘‘I am disappointed,’’ Anil said after the event. He was expecting to win the gold, which ultimately Tao Wu of China won with a throw of 60.76m.

Much was expected from Anju George in triple jump. But the long jump winner was unfortunate as she had to settle for the fourth spot despite covering a distance of 13.26 – the same as the bronze medallist. Anju lost the medal on the countback as Tatyana Bocharvova’s third jump read 13.23.

Like in the long jump, Anju failed to get her rhythm right. She did well on the hop but often missed the step and committed two fouls.

Earlier in the day, Pong Sil Ham of North Korea won the women’s marathon in 2:33:35 hours. As soon as she entered the stadium for the final lap the entire media rushed to the finishing point. But the security, covering the North Koreans, did not allow them to come anywhere near the North Korean runner. On the victory stand, too, the media tried to come closer to the runner as she cried like a child after listening to the North Korean national anthem in South Korea — a rarity indeed.

Bobby proves a point after silver medal


Bobby clears the bar to win the silver. (Reuters)

Bobby Alloysius wanted to prove a point and she did it in style by winning the silver medal. Two years ago Bobby had to suffer the criticism of failing to perform despite training in Finland. ‘‘I wanted to erase that blot from my career and I am glad today I have done it,’’ she declared proudly after winning the medal.

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Unfortunately, Bobby could not get the feel of the precious silver as she was the joint winner with Kazakh Marina Korzhova and with only one medal available, the organising committee requested Bobby to collect it on Monday.

There was apprehensions before the event that Bobby might not be able acclimatise to the hot and humid Busan as she had just come after a training stint in the freezing conditions in Russia. But on Sunday it was not the weather that troubled her but the cheering band in the stands proved to be an obstacle.

‘‘Whenever I jumped, there was a lot of noise and that irritated me,’’ she said. But she was quick to add ‘‘now that I have a medal, I guess everything is fine.’’ Both Bobby and Marina cleared all their jump from 1.70 to 1.88 in the first attempt but failed at 1.90 and were tied for the second spot. Incidentally, the gold medal winner, Tatiana Efimenko of Kyrgizstan, had two failures at 1.88. but she cleared 1.90 to win the gold. This was the same height that Bobby had cleared at the Federation Cup at Bangalore early this year. Bobby, who shifted to the flop style of jumping from straddle in 1990, knows chinks in her training. She was very candid when she said ‘‘Technique wise, I was quite bad today but only the strength gave me the silver.’’

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