Sport - Athletics

Indians win medals but…

NEW DELHI: Indian middle distance runners Chatholi Hamza, Sushma Devi and Sinimole Paulose won medals in the Sollentuna Grand Prix in Stockholm on Tuesday, but Olympic qualifying marks remained elusive for them as well as the rest of the team.

Hamza, on the trail of a pacemaker up to 1200m (2:57.72) could not keep up the tempo and was third in the main men’s 1500m race, timing 3:42.73 while Pritam Bind, the second Indian in the event, came fourth in 3:43.91.

Kenyan Benson Esho won in a season best 3:41.08. The qualification mark stands at 3:39.00.

Sushma Devi won her first medal at this level, claiming the silver in the women’s 800 metres ahead of Sinimole with a time of 2:03.82.

Sinimole, in the forefront among Olympic standard seekers, clocked 2:04.32 for the third place. Johanna Hallberg of Sweden registered a personal best 2:03.38 while claiming the gold. The Indians were looking for a mark of 2:01.30 or better in order to clinch a Beijing berth.

Once again, the 800m qualification mark of 1:47.00 eluded the Indian male runners. Rajeev Ramesan missed it narrowly for the second time in 10 days, while coming fourth in 1:47.12.

In an earlier meet he had timed 1:47.06 at Solihull, England.

Sajeesh Joseph won the ‘B’ race, but in a poor 1:50.31. Ravinder Sharma took the ‘B’ race in the men’s 1500 metres in below-par time of 3:48.81.

The fact that there was no top-50 runner in any of the events that they were competing in cannot be lost sight of while analysing the performance of the Indians, even though, they participated in a European Permit meet for the first time on this tour.

The Indian athletes are scheduled to participate in a meet in Cork City, Ireland, on July 12 before returning home.

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