Women’s relay team sets national record

The Indian women’s 4x400 metres relay team almost booked their ticket to Athens Olmypics clocking a new national record of 3 minutes, 2...

The Indian women’s 4×400 metres relay team almost booked their ticket to Athens Olmypics clocking a new national record of 3 minutes, 27.35 seconds to win the gold in the second leg of the 2004 Asian Grand Prix athletics series in Colombo. India, who were ranked 20th by the IAAF in the last Athens relay qualification list, will now move up several places to be in strong contention to grab an Olympic berth. The top 16 nations will qualify for Athens with the cut-off date set for July 21.

The quartet — Manjit Kaur, K M Beenamol, Rajwinder Kaur and Chitra K Soman — clocked India’s first sub 3:28 time and in the process erased the earlier mark set by K M Beenamol, Paramjit Kaur, Jincy Philips and Manjima Kuriakose in Chennai on July 31, 2000.

Last week in the first leg of the Grand Prix at Songkla, Thailand, they had clocked 3:29.53 seconds.

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India ended yesterday’s meet with three gold, four silver and two bronze medals. The silver medal winners were K J Manoj Lal (men’s 400m), Navpreet Singh (men’s shot put), Neelam J Singh (women’s discus) and J J Shoba (women’s long jump).

Shoba, whose pet event is heptathlon, also won the bronze in 100m hurdles clocking 13.91 seconds.

Manoj Lal came far behind Sri Lankan Rohan Pradeep Kumara Fernando (45.78) in 46.75 seconds. Navpreet, who won the gold in the first leg, managed only a disappointing 18.13m. Neelam came second with an effort of 60.63m which was way behind the 64.30m that fetched China’s Li Yan Feng the gold. Shoba leaped to a distance of 6.63m in women’s long jump to establish herself as India’s No. 2 in the event behind world No. 4 Anju Bobby George.