NEW DELHI: The ambience was electric. So were the performances.
There was a medal rush by the Indians at the Commonwealth Games here on Tuesday and for a brief moment, one almost lost count.
A gold by the women's mile relay team and four bronze medals marked the concluding day of track and field action at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. The bronzes came from triple jumper Renjith Maheswary, javelin thrower Kashinath Naik, both in the men's section, and from both the sprint relay teams.
Rich haul
What India could not achieve in more than fifty years at the Commonwealth Games, it managed to do in just five magical days in Delhi. The country had won just nine track and field medals at the Games, starting with Milkha Singh's gold in 1958, before Delhi, but now, with only the marathon to go on Thursday, India already has 12 medals, including two golds.
“It's unbelievable, I've never seen some of the girls run like this before,” said P.T. Usha, after watching the 4x400 relay women take the gold.
A.C. Ashwini, a hurdler, ran the race of her life to overtake Nigerian Dammy Abogunloko and give India the lead midway through the third leg. Mandeep Kaur, the anchor, continued the good work as the host pocketed its second gold of these Games and its first-ever relay victory in the Games history. Manjeet Kaur and Sini Jose ran the first two legs.
“We're very happy, we were sure of the bronze, the gold is a big surprise,” said Mandeep after the golden run which was timed at 3:27.77s. “Our baton exchange was very good.”
Ashwini's confidence was a notch higher. “We expected to win the gold. We knew we'd win if we beat Nigeria. And we did.”
The medals were so quick in coming, five of them in around two hours, that the nearly 45,000 spectators at the stadium were left dazed, drunk in pure joy.
Stunning show
H.M. Jyothi was dazed too, after leading the women's 4x100m relay team to the bronze, its first sprint relay medal in the Games' history. India's short sprinters have often been so mediocre that the country sometimes doesn't even field teams at the Commonwealth Games.
But on Tuesday, with S. Geetha, Srabani Nanda, P.K. Priya and Jyothi on track, it was a different day.
“I asked Geetha whether this is all a dream,” said Jyothi.“I couldn't believe it. I was unwell too, had fever, throat pain and a toothache yesterday. I wasn't even sure whether I'd be able to run today.”
It could have been a silver but for Ghana's Janet Amposah dipping at the tape, denying India that honour.
Meanwhile, the men's sprint relay team did one better. The quartet of M. Rahamatulla, Sathya Suresh, Shameermon and Abdul Najeeb Qureshi not only won the bronze but also bettered the National record, their second in as many days.
“We believed in ourselves,” said Shameermon. “Yesterday, the baton exchange was not good. We worked on that and it paid off.”
The team clocked 38.89 secs improving upon the 39-second barrier for the first time.
There was plenty of action on the field too. Former Asian champion Renjith Maheswary was jumping for joy after his career-best 17.07m leap in the third round of the men's triple jump which won him the bronze.
That effort broke Renjith's own three-year-old national record of 17.04m. The 24-year-old upset England's former European runner-up Douglas Nathan (PB 17.64) and Grenada's Randy Lewis (PB 17.49) on his way with a massive third-round jump.
Renjith's effort was probably the country's best performance in athletics at these Games.
Around the same time, Kashinath won the men's javelin bronze with a fifth round throw of 74.29m.
No comments:
Post a Comment