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Journalism of Courage
FUKUOKA, July 19: India will have a tough time making a mark at this meet. If the first day was any indication, there were only be some minor medals barring some upset. Even the redoubtable PT Usha, may find it difficult to strike the kind of medal, which was once taken for granted.
Yet of ten members of the Indian squad who were on view on the first day only she looked medal worthy. Running in the first semifinal she clocked 53.33 seconds to win the race, but she must have been a little worried as the second semi-final was won not by the Asia8217;s current best Li Jing 50.01s but by neighbour Damayanthi Dharsha of Sri Lanka in 52.60s. Jing looking stale struggled in third in 54.33s, but still made the final. The other Chinese girl, Chen Yuxiang was second behind Usha in 53.79s.
Quartermilers Paramjit Singh 46.51s and Lijo David Thotan 46.63s both made the 400m finals by virtue of being the two best losers but only a brave, or rather, a foolish gambler would money on them winning a medal.
For, thefield includes Ibrahim Ismail, former World Championships finalist and almost unbeatable in Asia, and Shon Ju-Il, who in the last two Asian championships was second to the Qatari, Ismail. There is also the Japanese trio, Kenji Tabata, Kan Masayoshi and Shunji Karube, all of whom have personal bests of under 46 seconds. Rajeev Balakrishnan went through to second round with a third place in his heat in 10.50s, while Amit Khanna clocked 10.61s to join him in the second round of the 100m.
Surinderjit Kaur who opened with a foul ended fourth with 47.96m, but the bronze seemed somewhat distant at 48.48m achieved by Eriko Kubato. And Amandeep Kaur, was way below her best and also ended a distant fourth. She achieved 15.53m as against the bronze medal distance of 17.66m by Korean Lee Myong-Sun.
GG Prameela, whose main aim is heptathlon was 10th in long with 6.10m, while Virnder Pnia found himself out of depth in a strong hammer field. He was ninth. out of 10 throwers.
