Sport - Athletics

Mayookha completes double

— photo: A.M. Faruqui

VICTORY LEAP: Kerala’s Mayookha Johny came up with a career-best performance in the women’s long jump event.

BHOPAL: The expectations of more athletes achieving Olympics standards remained unfulfilled as the 14th Federation Cup athletics championships concluded on an uneventful note here on Friday.

Amidst the pedestrian fare, if one athlete rose above the ordinary it was Kerala long jumper Mayookha Johny. The 19-year-old Kozhikode girl produced her career best of 6.32 while winning the gold ahead of J. J. Shobha (6.22) and M. A. Prajusha (6.19). Mayookha hit 6.32 in the second round after Shobha had opened with a 6.0. She had done a 6.25 at the State meet at Kochi last year.

A second year BBA student at Thalassery’s Brennan College, she had a personal best (13.34) while winning the triple jump gold here.

Junior National Coach Suresh Babu rates Mayookha high. “She should be the replacement for Anju in a few years,” he said.

Barring heptathlete Susmita Singha Roy, on the second day, no athlete qualified for the Olympics from this meet. No one else came close even. Including Susmita there are four athletes who have made the Beijing grade now.

There is optimism that the middle distance runners including Chatholi Hamza and Sinimole Paulose will return qualifying timings sooner rather than later. Hamza got beaten a second time in a week in the 1500 metres by the same youngster who had outsprinted him at Patiala.

Twenty-year-old Ravinder Sharma Bharadwaj, who hails from Narela, on the outskirts of Delhi, again produced a ‘kick’ into the home straight that Hamza found difficult to match.

The timings were ordinary, 3:52.01 for the Delhi boy and 3:52.38 for Hamza who had recently claimed the silver in the Asian Indoors in3:41.18. “From indoor to outdoors, without much practice in between and not much rest it has been tough to cope,” said Hamza.

The women discus throwers fared no better with Seema Antil reaching just 57.54, poorer than at Patiala, while taking the gold. Harwant Kaur, winner at Patiala with 58.54, came second this time with 56.16 while Neelam J. Singh remained in the 47-metre bracket for the fourth place.

The Olympics qualifying mark is 59 .0 metres. If there was hope that the women quarter milers would clock better timings than those achieved at Patiala, it was belied.

In a battle essentially between two ONGC athletes, Chitra Soman prevailed over Mandeep Kaur, 53.59 to 53.88. Chitra had timed 53.19 at Patiala.

Satti Geetha, staging a comeback, claimed the bronze in 54.23, ahead of National record holder Manjeet Kaur who had to struggle to even come fourth with 54.82. Army won the men’s team championship while Jharkhand took the women’s title. Kuldev Singh and Sinimole Paulose were adjudged ‘best athletes’.

The results:

Men: 400m: 1. Virender Kumar Pankaj (UP) 47.10, 2. P. Shankar (ONGC) 47.40, 3. V. B. Bineesh (Ker) 47.52; 1500m: 1. Ravinder Sharma Bharadwaj (Del) 3:52.01, 2. C. Hamza (ASCB) 3:52.38, 3. Pritam Bind (ONGC) 3:52.66; 10,000m: 1. Surendra Singh (ASCB) 29:52.69, 2. Santosh Kumar (Jkd) 30:10.91, 3. Soji Mathew (ASCB) 30:29.42; Pole vault: 1.Gajanan Upadhyay (Jkd) 4.90, 2. Bimin K. P. (Ker) 4.80, 3. Sunder Singh (BSF) 4.60; shot put: 1. Om Prakash (Har) 18.44, 2. P. B. Giri (ASCB) 17.66, 3. Satyendra Kumar Singh (Jkd) 17.47; 4x100m relay: 1. Jharkhand 41.12, 2. ASCB 42.66, 3. Kerala 42.88; 4x400m relay: 1. ASCB3:18.60, 2. BSNL 3:18.87, 3. Tamil Nadu 3:19.66.

Women: 400m: 1. Chitra Soman (ONGC) 53.59, 2. Mandeep Kaur (ONGC) 53.88, 3. S. Geetha (AP) 54.23; 1500m: 1. Sinimole Paulose (Jkd) 4:23.71, 2. Bindu S. R. (Ker) 4:33.75, Priyanka Patel (UP) 4:34.22; 10,000m: 1. Preeja Sreedharan (Ker) 36:36.22, 2. Kavita Raut (Mah) 37:03.96, 3. Preethi Rao (Jkd) 38:07.17; Long jump: 1. Mayookha Johny (Ker) 6.32, 2. J. J. Shobha (AP 6.22, 3. Prajusha M. K. (Ker) 6.19; Discus: 1. Seema Antil (CRPF) 57.54, 2. Harwant Kaur (P. Pol) 56.16,3. Saroj Sihag (CRPF) 48.79, Hammer: 1. Sukanya Mishra (UP) 49.33, 2.Gunjan Singh (UP) 47.72, 3. Vipin Kumari (CRPF) 47.57; 4x100m relay: 1. Andhra Pradesh 47.34, 2. Kerala 47.40, 3. Jharkhand 49.60; 4x400mrelay: 1. Andhra Pradesh 3:4870, 2. Kerala 3:50.72, 3. Bengal 4:08.14.

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