Athletics: Navpreet Singh bags gold in shot put

Amman, July 29: Navpreet Singh came up with his season's best effort of 19.70m to win gold in men's shot put on the fourth day of the Asian Athletics championship here.

Singh, who recorded his personal best throw of 19.93m three years ago, had won silver in the last edition of the Championship in Incheon, Korea. His earlier season's best was at the National Games in Guwahati, where he threw the iron ball to a distance of 18.60m to win gold.

Another Indian, Sourabh Vij, was sixth a throw of 17.49m in the final on Saturday.

Min-Hunag Chang (19.66m) of Chinese Taipei and Khaled Habash al Suwaidi (19.51m) of Qatar won silver and bronze respectively.

Earlier in the day, Preeja Shridharan added another silver by winning women's 5000m race while Krishna Poonia won a bronze in women's discus throw.

Preeja, who had won a silver in 10,000m on the first day of the Championship on Wednesday, ran 16:56.16s to finish second behind Bahrain's Kareema Saleh Jasmine, who clocked 16:40.87s. Mi Gyong Kim of North Korea won the bronze with a time of 18:21.32s.

In women's discus, Poonia could clear 55.38m while compatriot Harwant Kaur was fourth with a throw of 52.43m.

Both the gold and silver went to Chinese athletes Shaoyang Xu (61.30m) and Yanfeng Li (61.13m).

With the three medals, India's tally has swelled to nine with two gold, five silver and two bronze.

Meanwhile, in men's decathlon, P Vinod and Jora Singh failed to secure podium finish. Vinod (7441 points) and Singh (7024) finished fourth and sixth respectively.

The gold was won by Ahmed Hassan Musa of Qatar with 7678 aggregate points. The silver and bronze went to Hadi Sepehrzad (7667 points) of Iran and Pavel Andreev (7484) of Uzbekistan respectively.

Indians also disappointed in men's 800m. Rajeev Ramesan (1:56.27S) and SP Francis (2:02.43s) finished fifth and eighth in the final.

But, the Indian men's 4X100m relay quartet qualified for the final after finishing second in the heats. They clocked 40.18s behind China (39.62s) in heat number two.

On Friday, Chitra K Soman had given India its first gold medal by winning the women's 400m race, clocking 53.03 seconds, ahead of Japanese Asami Tanno (53.20s) and Sri Lankan S. Mgnaka (54.11s). The Indian's effort was just a fraction of a second lesser than her season's best of 53.01s which she achieved in the Guwahati leg of the Asian Grand Prix last month, though much below her personal best of 52.48s.

Star long jumper Anju Bobby George had won a silver, leaping 6.65m and in the process clearing the World Championship qualifying mark of 6.60m. But, the wind speed of 4.1m/s, which exceeded the legal limit, meant she did not qualify for the prestigious event in Osaka, Japan, next month.

Kazakhstan's Olga Rypakova jumped 6.66m in her last attempt to win the gold.

Anju had failed to clear the World Championship qualifying mark in the three legs of Asian Grand Prix in Bangkok, Guwahati and Pune last month, besides the National Combined Events and Jumps meet in Pune.

On Thursday, Sinimole Paulose had won a silver in women's 800m, while JJ Shobha and Sushmita Singha Roy added a silver and bronze, respectively, in heptathlon.

UNI