Vinod wins Heptathlon gold in Asian Indoor Games

Macau, Nov 1 (UNI) P J Vinod did India proud winning the Heptathlon gold in the Athletics competition at the second Asian Indoor Games here today.

Apart from Vinod's gold, Indians won three silver and four bronze medals on the last day of the athletic competitions.

However, Chinese Liu Qing shattered Sinimol Paulose's double gold medal winning dream by beating her in the final of 800m event.

Liu clocked 2:06.13 seconds, while silver medal winner Sinimol finished with a timing of 2:06.32 seconds. A Vijila took the bronze clocking 2:06.75 seconds.

Vinod claimed his first continental level title in combined category by scoring 5561 points in the two-day long gruelling event.

The 28-year-old Vinod beat Kazakistan's Dubitskiy Pavel (5432 points) by more than hundred points after completion of 1000m run, the seventh event of the Heptathlon.

Following the footsteps of legendary decathlete Suresh Babu, Vinod who hails from Kerala has spared no efforts to achieve greater skills in each decathlon event. In due course he faced various injuries due to which he had to exit from many contests.

Early this year, Vinod's season opener Federation Cup demonstrated his level of fitness and confidence when he scored 7004 points followed by brave efforts at Pune National combined event, where battling with heavy rain he managed to score a convincing score of 6893 points.

Vinod was in good form during Asian Championship at Amman but he could not win the medal inspite of scoring second overall best performance by an Indian with 7441 points.

Meanwhile, in the women's 3000m final, Preeja Sreedharan won the silver medal with a timing of 9:27.62 seconds while Surendra Singh too claimed silver in the men's 3000m final with a timing of 8:04.99 seconds. Sunil Kumar took the bronze with 8:10.07 seconds.

Another Indian R Rajeev won the bronze medal in the men's 800m with a timing of 1:50.87 seconds.

Indian women 4x400m relay team consisting of Anu Mariam Jose, Antony Vijila, Sini Jose and Machettira Poovamma Raju also won the bronze medal with a timing of 3:41.09 seconds.

UNI