Ram gets silver, Antil bags bronze for India in Asian GP

Jiaxiang (China), May 23: Middle distance runner Ghamanda Ram won a silver while discus thrower Seema Antil bagged a bronze for India even as Chinese athletes dominated the opening day of the Asian Grand Prix Series first leg here.

Ram secured the silver in the 800m and was just a fraction of a second (0.22s) slower than reigning Asian Games gold-medallist Sadjad Moradi of Iran, who won the gold with a moderate timing of 1:50.47s. Local runner Yang Xiaofei took the bronze after clocking 1:50.84s.

The second Indian in the fray, Sajeesh Joseph, finished fifth with a timing of 1:51.62s. In women's discuss throw, Antil hurled the disc to 49.77m for the bronze medal behind China's Yang Fei (58.01m) and Lin Xiaojing (51.52m).

Among other Indians, the outstanding performer of the day was triple jumper Mayookha Johny.

She registered a personal best 13.71m, which was just 1cm short of M A Prajusha's national mark set during the Commonwealth Games at New Delhi last October, but missed out podium finish, signing off fourth.

The Chinese were 1-2 here too with Li Yanmei (13.98m) and Xie Limei (13.93m) taking the top spots with Uzbekistan's Aleksandra Kotlyarova taking home the bronze medal with an effort of 13.80m.

Bibin Dev (fifth in triple jump with 16.19m) and Mahan Singh (sixth in long jump with 7.35m) among men and Suman Devi (fifth in javelin throw with 45.93m) in women's division were the other decent Indian performers of the day.

China's Chen Qiang (10.38 secs) was the fastest man while the honour went to veteran Guzel Khubbieva of Uzbekistan (11.46 secs) in the women's section.

PTI