Anju qualifies for final, but disapapoints

Melbourne, Mar 22: India's star jumper Anju Bobby George failed to showcase her potential as she gave a below par performance and barely managed to qualify in the long jump event of the athletics competition in the Commonwealth Games here today.

Anju's performance was no good advertisement for Indian athletics as the ace jumper came up with a disappointing show with a leap of 6.41 meters in the qualifying round to sneak into the finals today.

Anju, who claimed a bronze in the previous edition of the Games at Manchester, cleared the distance in her third attempt that placed her second in her group and sixth overall.

The famed Indian jumper went through all her three jumps, but still managed only a best of 6.41m, that did earn her a place into Friday's final, but indicated that she will need to come up with something big to get onto the podium once again, as she did four years ago.

In men's 800 metre heats, Ghamanda Ram finished fourth in his heat clocking 1:48.03s and failed to qualify for the finals.

The heat in which Ghamanda figured was won by John Nkamasiai Litei of Kenya with a time of 1:46.55, followed by Achraf Tadili of Cannada (1:47.67s).

In women's 800m, Pinky Pramanick sneaked into the semifinal clocking 2 minutes, 05.18 seconds, while the three heptathlon girls could not lift themselves up today as well and brought up the rear at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

After the end of five events, J J Shobha was ninth (4050 points) and Soma Biswas 10th (4019 points) while Sushmita Singha Roy languished at 12th and the last spot.

In long jump, since only three athletes were able to cross the benchmark of 6.50m, the 12 best performers gained entry into the final slated for Friday.

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