The Hindu : Anju George equals National record

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 10, 2002

Sport

Sport - Athletics

Anju George equals National record

By K. P. Mohan

Tamil Nadu's Anju George, who equalled the National record in women's long jump event at the 42nd National athletics championships in New Delhi on Monday.

NEW DELHI SEPT 9. Anju B. George had taken a last-minute decision to compete in the 42nd Open National championship. It was as well that she did. For, she raised the level of performance in this meet with a National record-equalling 6.74m in the long jump competition on the concluding day on Monday.

Anju's feat apart, it was yet another day when nothing exceptional happened. Barring of course the terribly disappointing manner in which Gulab Chand responded to the `kick' the others had in the men's 5000 metres. India's confirmed entry in the 5,000m and 10,000m at the Busan Asian Games, was sadly a dismal shadow of his glorious past as he finished fourth in 14:34.74.

It would be pointless even to match Gulab's timing against the qualifying mark of 14:10.00. For, that is no longer important; Gulab has no race fitness to even contemplate a trip to Busan, no matter that he might have complained about an injury having hampered him.

Anju George was recovering from fever when she made the dash here to give herself at least one competition after the Commonwealth Games, in her run-up to the Asiad. She and husband and coach Bobby George had the National mark in mind since she was doing 7.80m in training.

Anju fouled her first jump and then produced a 6.66 on her second. That was a meet record and that set the tempo for the contest, though there was no one who was capable of pushing her. Pramila Ganapathy, coming back into competition after a lay-off because of jaundice, did not cross 6.00m but she was happy with her 5.98 that gave her the fourth place.

Anju leapt to 6.74 on her third jump, equalling her National mark set in Thiruvananthapuram last year. There was a negligible headwind of 0.3.

"You can no longer say that there was an incline here,'' said Bobby George jokingly referring to the oft-repeated fact about the Thiruvananthapuram runway having an incline, though within permissible limits. "But then no one writes about the runway being worn out,'' Bobby had complained only on Sunday.

Of course there could never have been any debate about Anju's capacity to jump beyond 6.70-plus nor can there be any debate about she having confidently moved into the top medal contender bracket after Monday's feat. This 6.74 puts her right on top of the Asian charts for the season ahead of Kazakh Yelena Koshcheyeva who beat her three out of three in the Asian Grand Prix circuit earlier this season. Till today, Koshcheyeva had held the Asian lead for the season with her 6.63m recorded at Bangkok.

Anju's later attempt to go past her National mark did not materialise as she had a 6.59, a foul and a 6.37 after that. But then for someone who was not even sure whether she would be able to compete or not a few days ago, this was an excellent effort. The Commonwealth Games bronze medallist is surely on the right track in her Asiad campaign.

Anju could not however get the `best athlete' award. That went to Saraswati Saha for her 22.83 in the 200 metres on Sunday.

In the men's section, K. J. Manojlal claimed the honours for his 400m victory.

A surprise contender for the javelin slot in the Asian Games squad emerged when Harminder Singh touched 77.39 on his third throw. The qualifying mark happened to be 78.00m. The man fancied to take the berth, Jagdish Bishnoi, kept up his disappointing streak finishing fourth with 71.45m.

Harminder has had some success earlier, too, winning the circuit meet here at 76.40 and coming second at Ludhiana with a 75.78m.

Neither K. M. Beenamol nor her brother K. M. Binu disturbed the recorders, though both won rather comfortably the 800m in either section. Beenamol clocked her second best of 2:02.18 behind her circuit meet performance here of 2:02.01. Binu managed only 1:48.69 but more importantly, P. S. Primesh who came second in 1:49.28 was well short of the qualifying mark for the Asiad, that of 1:47.40.

Luckier was hammer thrower Pramod Tiwari who crossed the qualifying mark for Busan, of 68.50 with a throw of 68.77 metres on his second attempt. It was always on the cards that Tiwari might make the grade. Now he should get the nod when the selection committee meets here on Tuesday.

The men's 4x100m relay team of Sanjay Ghosh, Piyush Kumar, Anand Menezes and Clifford Joshua clocked 39.51, a vast improvement over its performance in the last trials here when with Anil Kumar on anchor the timing was 39.81s. Still the team was short of the qualifying mark of 39.30.

Interestingly, the foursome clocked better than the existing National record of 39.70 timed by the Indian team in the Asian championships in Jakarta two years ago just as they had done on the opening day when they timed 39.58s. Normally, trials timings are not taken up for record purposes.

The women's team of Anuradha Biswal, Vinita Tripathi, Saraswati Saha and Poonam Tomar timed 44.80 against the qualifying mark of 44.50. They were marginally poorer than in the earlier trials on the opening day of the meet when they had clocked 44.73.

The overall team championship was claimed by the Railways which also won the women's title. Services won the men's team championship.

The results:

Men: 800m: 1. K. M. Binu (Rly) 1:48.69, 2. P. S. Primesh (LIC) 1:49.28, 3. K. A. Jaya Kumar (Pol) 1:49.32. 5000m: 1. I. A. Shivananda (Rly) 14:26.28, 2. Aman Saini (HP) 14:26.79, 3. Jagannath Lakade (Ser) 14:27.76. 400m hurdles: 1. Shebin Joseph (Steel Plants) 51.80s, 2. G. Joseph (Pol) 51.90, 3. Prasad Reddy (Ser) 51.91. Pole vault: 1. V. V. Geesh Kumar (AP) 4.90m, 2. Praveen Kumar (RlY) 4.80, 3. Jitender Kumar (Pol) 4.70. Triple jump: 1.Amarjeet Singh (Pun) 15.90m, 2. Pritpal Singh (Pol) 15.70, 3. K. C. Saintison (Ser) 15.64. Hammer: 1. Pramod Tiwari (UP) 68.77m, 2. Rakesh Kumar (Ser) 66.02, 3. Nirbhay Singh (Ser) 65.99. Javelin: 1. Harminder Singh (Pol) 77.39 (NMR, old 76.96), 2. Fazal Ansari (Ser) 72.60, 3. Sunil Goswami (LIC) 72.03. 4x100m relay: 1. Services 40.84s, 2. Railways 40.92, 3. A.P 42.58. 4x400m relay: 1. Services 3:07.29, 2. Railways 3:08.61, 3. A.P. 3:14.69. 20,000m walk: 1. Sita Ram (Ser) 1:36:23.8, 2. Amreek Singh (Ser) 1:36:24.2, 3. Vijay Gehlot (Rly) 1:37:53.1. Team championship: 1. Services 144 points, 2. Railways 123.

Women: 800m: 1. K. M. Beenamol (Rly) 2:02.18, 2. Madhuri Singh (AISEB) 2:02.80, 3. C. Latha (TN) 2:03.61. 5000m: 1. Pampa Chanda (Rly) 17:05.63, 2. Madhuri Gurnule (LIC) 17:20.77, 3. Swati Gurnule (Mah) 17:26.74. 400m hurdles: 1. Roselin Arokia Mary (Rly) 59.02s, 2. Sahebani Oram (Rly) 59.72, 3. Babita (UP) 1:00.14. High jump: 1. Sarita Patil (Mah) 1.72m, 2. Sahana Kumari (Kar) 1.69, 3. Jaicy Thomas (Rly) 1.66. Long jump: 1. Anju B. George (TN) 6.74m (equals National record), 2. J. J. Shobha (Rly) 6.34, 3. Jetty C. Joseph (LIC) 6.17. Shot put: 1. N. Latha (Rly) 15.40m, 2. Chaitali (Rly) 14.27, 3. Rina Rodrigues (Kar) 13.22. Heptathlon: 1. P. S. Bindu (Rly) 4718 pts, 2. Rosemary Anthony (Ker) 4543, 3. Sharda Patil (Mah) 3522. 4x100m relay: 1. Railways 46.86s, 2. Police 48.10, 3. A. P. 48.57. 4x400m relay: 1. Railways 3:38.49, 2. Punjab 3:42.65, 3. A. P. 3:58.80. 20,000m walk: 1. Y. Bala Devi (Rly) 1:55:25.4, 2. Ravina Antil (Har) 2:02:12.3, 3. Pratibha Mahamoni (Mah) 2:03:24.4. Team championship: 1. Railways 182 points, 2. LIC 49.

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