Sport - Athletics

Sandeep keeps his cool to win 100m gold

By A. Vinod

NAGERCOIL JULY 10. It was worse than expected. Even if due weightage is given to the argument that the athletes were performing at the first meet of a new season and the conditions at the Anna stadium were far from conducive, the National Circuit meet clearly showed how underprepared our top athletes are for the hectic season ahead. Packed into the calendar this season are the World championships, Asian championships and the inaugural Afro-Asian Games.

Hiram La Madrid, the Cuban coach now in the country to train the Army athletes at a special camp in Pune, made a point to this effect when he said, ``It was mostly disappointing to see many athletes with some great records perform so badly this afternoon. If you are a runner who has achieved a time of 1:48 in the 800m, then you should be able to achieve at least 1:50 or 1:51 even if it is your first race of a fresh season.''

Though the Cuban middle-distance and long-distance coach was right in his comments, the first leg of the National domestic circuit meet did throw up some surprising results, especially in the men's section. There was also some bungling by the officials with regard to the introduction of the new IAAF rule for foul-starts in the 100m event for men.

Going against the new rule, there was no disqualification after the second foul-start and it was only after the race had another early start that the officials woke up to introduce the current law. Here again, it was the wrong athlete (Amit Saha) who was initially penalised before the officials, in the wake of a protest from Sandeep Sarkaria, asked Tamil Nadu's Parameshwaran to vacate the field.

Sandeep, despite losing his temper, however, kept his cool as the race finally started and emerged a clear winner over Piyush Kumar and Amit. The trio was way ahead of the rest of the pack right from the start. Though it was Piyush who seemed to have a slight edge over his fellow National campers at the end of 70m, Sandeep accelerated at a vital time to close the gap and finished ahead in 10.89s, five-hundredths of a second before his Delhi teammate. Amit was third in 11.01s.

The surprises of the day came in the hammer and javelin throws as favourites Pramod Tiwari and Harminder Singh failed to win the gold in their respective events. While the hammer gold went to Uttar Pradesh's Rakesh Kumar and silver to Punjab's Birkaran Singh, the National record-holder Tiwari could manage only the third spot with a poor effort of 64.02m.

Worse was the case of Harminder who failed to get even into the medals bracket and was beaten by Services' Lijish Kumar, Punjab's Ramandeep Singh and Avtar Singh in that order. Lijish did a 70.38m.

Other top contenders who bit the dust were P. Ramachandran (200m) and K. J. Manojlal (400m), the former finishing a poor sixth in the event clinched by Uttar Pradeh's Abhishek Pandey (22.02s).

Manojlal ended a disappointing eighth in the combined result for the 400m, run as Race A and Race B. The gold went to Bhupender Singh who figured in Race A while the next two places were taken by Suresh (Tamil Nadu) and Satish Paul (Service), both running in Race B. Incidentally, both Bhupender and Suresh were timed at 48.65s before being separated by the official electronic timer.

The shot put event, added to the programme only this morning, saw all the top three finishers cross the 18.00m-mark. Delhi's Kuldeep Mann topped the field by hurling the 16-pound iron ball to a distance of 18.50m ahead of Services' Jaibir Singh (18.22m) and Punjab's Ramvijay Singh (18.17m).

In the women's section, Rakhee Saha, 21, posted a personal best of 11.80s while winning the 100m gold from international Poonam Tomar and Kerala's K.M. Greeshma. The Kolkata University degree student and Eastern Railway employee had clocked 12.00s while winning the all-India inter-university gold in Gulbarga earlier in the year. It was a close race all through but after K. N. Priya, the early leader faded away, it was Rakhee all the way.

Neelam Jaswant Singh, too, was an easy winner in women's discus though the Punjab athlete could not go anywhere near her best of 64.55m, achieved en route to the Busan Asian Games gold last year; Neelam's best today was just 57.60m.

Haryana's Krishna Poonia sneaked in to grab the silver from the better-known Harwant Kaur. Seema Antil, the fourth athlete in the fray, was nowhere in the picture as she managed only a 47.40m. It was an eminently forgettable afternoon for the former World junior bronze medallist as well as the spectators.

The results:

Men: 100m: 1. Sandeep Sarkaria (Del), 10.89s, 2. Piyush Kumar (Del), 10.94s, 3. Amit Saha (Rlys), 11.01s; 200m: 1. Abhishek Pandey (UP), 22.02s, 2. Amit Saha (Rlys), 22.06s, 3. Surinder Singh (Pun), 22.45s; 400m: 1. Bhupender Singh (Pun), 48.65s, 2. Suresh (TN), 48.65s, 3. Satish Paul (SSCB), 49.06s; 800m: 1. P.S. Primesh (Ker), 1:54.91, 2. S.J. Suresh (SSCB), 1:55.22, 3. Ghammada Ram (SSCB), 1:55.97; 3,000m: 1. Kuldeep Kumar (UP), 8:30.36, 2. Arun D'Souza (AP), 8:32.25, 3. I.A. Shivananda (AP), 8:33.12; Shot put: 1. Kuldeep Mann (Del), 18.50m, 2. Jaibir Singh (SSCB), 18.22s, 3. Ramvijay Singh (Pun), 18.17m; Hammer throw: 1. Rakesh Kumar (UP), 66.89m, 2. Birkaran Singh (Pun), 64.12m, 3. Pramod Tiwari (UP), 64.02m; Javelin: 1. Lijish Kumar (SSCB), 70.38m, 2. Ramandeep Singh (Pun), 68.74m, 3. Avtar Singh (Pun), 66.70m.

Women: 100m: 1. Rakhee Saha (Ben), 11.80s, 2. Poonam Tomar (Del), 12.00s, 3. K.M. Greeshma (Ker), 12.10s; 800m: 1. Madhuri A. Singh (Pun), 2:12.86, 2. C. Latha (TN), 2:14.35, 3. Tejinder Kaur (Pun), 2:21.53; Discus: 1. Neelam J. Singh (Pun), 57.60m, 2. Krishna Poonia (Har), 53.31m, 3. Harwant Kaur (Pun), 52.97m.

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