Four make grade for Asian meet

By Our Sports Reporter

BANGALORE, JULY 3. Two throwers in the boys' section - Amit Tyagi of Uttar Pradesh in shot put and Om Narain of Haryana in javelin - besides Mukti Saha (100m hurdles) and Manjit Kaur in the girls' 400 metres made the grade for the Asian junior athletics championship to be held at Brunei later this month.

The foursome's feats, however, were overshadowed by the overage issues that repeatedly cropped up on the opening day of the inaugural junior (under-20) Federation Cup athletics championship, sponsored jointly by MSIL and Karnataka Soaps & Detergents Ltd, at the Sree Kanteerava stadium here today. The top four in the girls' 400m metres too came below the set standards.

However, the issue was conveniently swept under the carpet by the AAFI as two of the culprits - Shyam Deo Mohanto of Jharkand and Nagamani of Andhra Pradesh - opted to withdraw from the competition after being detected.

Mukti Saha's three individual medal bid was not to be. Despite AAFI's announcement that three entries from a state or unit was being allowed, Mukti was not entered for the 100m.

However the frail West Bengal athlete made amends with a superb run in the 100m hurdles event winning with consummate ease.

Mukti's time of 14.04 seconds was well within the AAFI qualifying standard of 14.54 seconds. K.N. Priya was just a wee bit over the mark.

Priya too was not to be denied her moments of glory. Running in the fourth lane the Tamil Nadu lass, despite a stutter at the last few metres, breasted the tape in 12.31 seconds to win the `fastest girl' of the meet tag. Karnataka's hope G.D. Gowramma was left in second place, clocking 12.36 seconds, while Priya's teammate Nosheen Rajendran trailed in .07 seconds later.

The boys' 100m proved a much keener contest with Gujarat's Umesh Patel dipping in at the tape to clinch the gold in 10.97 seconds, while M. Kumar (Karnataka) and Sanjay (Haryana) breathed down his neck.

Manjit Kaur ran an impressive one-lap race. The sturdy Punjab girl pulled away from the 250-metre mark leaving Karnataka's Bindu Rani, who was off to a great start, gasping at the straight. While Manjit's time was well within the stipulated 55.03 seconds set for the event, Prathima Gaonkar (Goa), Bindu Rani and fourth-placed S. Geetha (AP) all dipped in well below the mark, with sub 55 seconds efforts.

Praveen Kumar in the boys' pole vault showed tremendous improvement over the week. Having done a mere 4.20 metres in last week's Senior Federation Cup, Praveen today sailed over the bar at 4.60 metres.

``That day it was very windy. This morning it was perfect,'' said the 18-year-old Northern Railway employee, from Haryana.

The results:

Boys: 100m: 1. Umesh Patel (Guj) 10.97s; 2. M. Kumar (Kar) 10.99s; 3. Sanjay (Har) 11.02s. 400m: 1. Shaikh Samser (WB) 47.84s; 2. K. Suresh (TN) 48.25s; 3. P. Shankar (AP) 48.69s. 1500m: 1. Bhupinder Singh (MP) 4:05.69s; 2. Nitin Rathod (Mah) 4:06.94s; 3. Ummed Singh (Guj) 4:06.98s. 10,000m: 1. Suresh Kumar (UP) 32:08.8s; 2. Ajit Singh (TN) 32:09.6s; 3. Mahesh (Kar) 32:27.3s. 110m hurdles: 1. Kunal Roy Choudhary (Mah) 14.88s; 2. Navnit Singh (Pun) 15.08s; 3. A. Avinash (TN) 15.22s. 3,000m steeplechase: 1. Mohan Singh (Raj) 9:28.57s; 2. O. Pari Meitri (Mani) 9:37.26s; 3. Sunil Goud (MP) 9:38.54s. Long jump: 1. Maha Singh (Pun) 7.24m; 2. Lakshminarayan (TN) 7.15m; 3. A.K. Saini (Ker) 7.03m. Pole vault: 1. Praveen Kumar (Har) 4.60m; 2. Jagbir Singh (Guj) 4.50m; 3. Devinder Kumar (Del) 3.80m. Shot put: 1. Amit Tyagi (UP) 16.79m; 2. Ranvijay Singh (UP) 16.04m; 3. Jagminder Singh (Chan) 15.06m. Javelin: 1. Om Narain (Har) 68.79m; 2. Sudheer Kumar (UP) 66.63m; 3. Mukesh Kumar Nehra (UP) 65.83m.

Girls: 100m: 1. K.N. Priya (TN) 12.31s; 2. G.D. Gowramma (Kar) 12.36s; 3. Noosheen Rajendran (TN) 12.43s. 400m: 1. Manjit Kaur (Pun) 53.25s; 2. Prathima Gaonkar (Goa) 54.39s; 3. Bindu Rani (Kar) 54.67s. 1500m: 1. L. Manjula (Kar) 4:41.51s; 2. Preeja Sreedharan (Ker) 4:43.32s; 3. Rupinder Kaur (UP) 4:52.35s. 10,000m: 1. L.G. Narasinghnavar (Kar) 38:15.4s; 2. Basanti Biswas (WB) 39:37.8s; 3. S.H. Premita Devi (Mani) 41:35.8s. 100m hurdles: 1. Mukti Saha (WB) 14.04s; 2. K.N. Priya (TN) 14.69s; 3. Bindushree Madhavi (AP) 14.75s. Long jump: 1. Vijayalakshmi (UP) 5.76m; 2. Binita Sonowal (Assam) 5.72m; 3. Ruta Patkar (Mah) 5.68m. Shot put: 1. Pooja Marita Jose (TN) 11.32m; 2. Taniya Anthony (Ker) 10.54m; 3. Reena Rodrigues (Kar) 10.41m.

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