Bhubaneswar, Jul 9 (UNI) It was a delightful day for sports aficionados as Indian athletics reigned supreme in the 22nd Asian Athletics Championship at the Kalinga Stadium here today. Apart from making the best medal haul of the Asian meet with 29 medals, India’s javelin sensation Neeraj Chopra set a new meet record with a throw of 85.23 m which surpassed the previous best of 83.27 m by Yukifumi Muragami of Japan set in 2011. Distance runner Govindan Lakshmanan registered a golden double by annexing the men’s 10,000m with a time of 29:55.87s to the 5000 m gold he won earlier in the meet. Both the 4 x 400m relay teams won gold medals with ease and India’s heptathlon specialist Swapna Barman registered her career best show and won her maiden Asian gold medal. She totaled 5,942 points.
India also gained a silver medal through T Gopi who was timed 29:58.89s in the 10,000 m. Three bronze medal came through Jinson Johnson (800m), Davinder Kang (javelin) and Purnima Hembram (heptathlon). India’s best haul of 22 medal was achieved twice, the last being in 1989 when India hosted the Asian meet in Delhi. There the gold count was eight. This meet surpassed all that with India garnering 29 medals, including 12 gold. India’s women 800 m runner Archana Adhav was declared winner but on protest from Sri Lanka, she was disqualified, the only incident that marred what looked like a very successful day for India. The jury of appeal disqualified Indian 800 m runner Archana Adhav from the race under rule 163.2 (b) for intentionally blocking fellow runner and awarded the gold and silver medals to Sri Lanka. Following a protest from Sri Lanka, the jury considered the video footage and concluded that the Indian blocked the path of one of the two Sri Lankan with a couple of metres to go for the finish. The disqualification of Archana meant Japanese runner Fumika Omori got the bronze medal in 2:06.50. The gold went to Nimili Arachchige of Sri Lanka who clocked 2:05.23s. Gayanthika Abeyrathne also of Sri Lanka was awarded the silver medal for her effort of 2:05.27s. India’s Lili Das was placed fourth.
Viktoriya Zyabkina scored a sprint double when she made a start to finish affair of the women’s 200m run with a smart time of 23.10s. Kazakh sprinter also completed a stunning hattrick of 200m gold medals at the Asian Championships. She first won it in 2013 and followed it up in 2015.
Coming off the block, Viktoriya ran fluently to completely dominate the race. Rumeshika Kumari Rathnayake, the 21-year-old Sri Lankan, however, denied Olga Safronova, to take the silver in 23.43s. Olga was third in 23.47s. India’s Dutee Chand came up with her season’s best of 23.59 to take fourth place ahead of team-mate Srabani Nanda, a bronze medallist in 2015.
Defending champion Femi Ogunode of Qatar was beaten to the third place in the men’s 200m where Chinese Taipei’s Yang Chun-Han took gold in 20.66s. Coming behind him was Korean Park Bong-Ko with telling strides to edge Ogunode to win silver in 20.76. The Qatari was timed 20.79. Kuwaiti R Al-Zofairi showed a sudden burst of speed entering the final straight to win the men’s 800m gold 1:49.47s. With India’s Jinson Johnson stepping on the pedal, Jamal Al-Hayrani of Qatar pushed ahead for silver in 1:49.94s. The Indian ended at the bronze place in 1:50.07s. UNI
