Preeja,Sudha give India double gold in athletics

28-year-old Preeja,belonging to Kerala’s Idukki district,and Commonwealth Games bronze winner Kavita of Maharashtra ran a tactical race by staying back of the pack before making the final effort to put back the bunch of nine other runners and cross the finish line with personal best times.

Preeja clocked 31 minutes,50.47 seconds,a good two minutes below the Asian and world record of China’s Wang Junxia but better than her 32:04s set two years ago at the London Olympic Games qualifying meet.

“I feel very proud to have won the gold medal after missing out on a medal in the Commonwealth Games. I was very disappointed with the Commonwealth Games performance and was determined to do well in the Asian Games,” said the short-statured Preeja.

“I am also happy for Kavita for getting the silver medal,¿ she said but could not describe how she overtook the rest of the field at the end.

“I don’t know. I just ran,that’s all,” she said.

She also credited the Indian government and her coaches for the victory.

“I lost my father at a very young age and my mother brought us up. I have a brother and sister. She worked in others’ houses to run the family,” said Preeja.

“I also give credit to the government for the money it spent on the month-long training which we got. I also want to give credit to my coach Nikolai Snesarov of Belarus and the Sports Authority of India,” added the golden girl.

Kavita,who too clocked her personal best of 31:51.44,also gave credit for her silver medal to the coaches and the government.

In men’s 20-km walk race,the first medal event in the track and field event,India’s Commonwealth Games bronze medallist Harminder and Baljinder could not keep up with the fast pace set by the leading bunch and finished sixth and seventh out of nine starters.

Harminder faded away past the 6km mark and clocked one hour,26 minutes and 33 seconds,three minutes below his personal best of 1:23:00 achieved this season.

Baljinder clocked 1:28:06 and was trailing the leading bunch after only the fifth km.

Wang Hao of China won the gold in a season’s best of 1:20:50,his teammate Chu Yafei took the silver in 1:21:57 while South Korea’s Kim Hyunsub,who won silver in the 2006 Asian Games,bagged the bronze (1:22:47).

Park Chi Sung of Korea was disqualified by the technical officials for breaching the walk rule.

In other athletics event of the day,Manjeet Kaur and Mandeep Kaur qualified for the final of women’s 400m to be held tomorrow after managing to secure the last two berths in the eight-competitor field.

However,it was disappointment for India in the men’s 400m race as Mortaja Shake and Bibin Mathew failed to make it to the final.

In the men’s 5000m final too India cut a sorry figure as Sunil Kumar finished on the eighth position with a season’s best of 14:01.76.

In the women’s 100m Jyothi Hiriyur Manjunath made it to the semifinals,clocking 12.04 in the heats.

There was further good news for India in the track and field events today as Mohammed Abdul Najeeb Qureshi and Satish Krishnakumar Rane also entered the semifinals after clocking 10.50 and 10.64 in their respective heats.