After 400m, Pinki wins 800m Gold; India completes 100 SAF Gold

Colombo, Aug 26 (UNI) Pinki Pramanik completed a personal double and picked up her second Gold of the meet in the 800m of the 10th SAF Games at the Sugathadasa Stadium here this evening.

Meanwhile, India reached the golden century and swelled its medals tally to 198 that include 100 Gold, 60 Silver and 38 Bronze.

One of the five Indians to find a place in the Asian team for next month's World Cup athletics championship in Athens, Pinki had won the 400m Gold at the same venue last night.

The Railway runner, a pre-tournament favourite after winning the Asian Grand Prix legs in Bangkok, Bangalore and Pune, clocked 2:03.81 to finish first ahead of fellow Indian S Shanthi (2:04.77) and Pakistani Bushra Parveen (2:08.04).

Pinki, however, could not better her personal best of 2:03.23 and Shiny Wilson's 1995 SAF record of 1:59.85 also remained unscathed.

Meanwhile, Francis Sagairaj fetched India's second athletics Gold by winning the men's 800m final. The Indian clocked 1:50.23 to edge out the Sri Lankan duo of A Abeynayaka (1:50.30) and WGAK Weliwita (1:50.36). The other Indian in the fray, Sanjeesh Joseph, finished fourth at 1:50.59.

The Gold, however, eluded male Indian athletes both in Discus throw and 3000m steeplechase.

In discus, Amritpal Singh (52.89m) finished second best, behind Pakistani Basharat Ali (55.10m) and ahead of fellow Indian Harpreet Singh (52.26m), who bagged the Bronze.

In steeplechase, Om Prakash (9:00.99) also settled with the Silver, behind Nepal's Rajendra Bhawadri (8:51.76), while another Indian, Rama Bahadur Subba, won the Bronze with 9:02.15.

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