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The week in Indian sports

ATHLETICS
New mark by Neelam; ATF team announced
Trivandrum, August 12: Neelam J Singh of Railways set a new national record in women's discus while Vinita Tripathi was disqualifed in the 400 metres on an eventful day in the fourth and final AAFI domestic circuit athletic meet. The 29-year-old Neelam hurled the discus to a new mark of 63.02 metres, shattering her 62.39 metres mark, set at the inter-state meet in Madras on July 29. The Discus sensation said she broke her discus throw mark for the 14th time and the second time at Trivandrum. Neelam has already overhauled the IAAF qualifying mark of 61.0 metres to make it to the Sydney Olympics team

In the quarter-mile race for women, Vinita Tripathi (Delhi) was disqualified for cheating. Vinita, who came third, had used the chest number of Rajani of Delhi. K M Beenamol (Kerala), whose career-best was 51.21 seconds set in Ukraine, was first in 51.60 seconds.

Burly Shakti Singh failed to achieve the expected double in the shot put and discus. He was able to reign supreme only in shot put, hurling the iron ball to 20.14 metres. This was lower than his own national record of 20.60 metres, set at the Bangalore circuit meet last month. The record is subject to ratification by the AAFI. In discus, Shakti failed to better his record throw of 61.72 metres in Bangalore, coming second with 57.08 metres. Anil Kumar (Haryana) secured the top spot with 61.30 metres in his very first throw.

In the hammer throw for women, it was a bad day for record holder K Jabeshwari of Railways, as the officials found that her hammer weighed 60 gm less than the actual weight required. Throwing with another hammer she finished the event with 56.74 metres, about two metres lower than her best.

In a related development, the Amateur Athletic Federation of India announced the biggest ever squad for the Asian Track and Field championships to be held in Jakarta from August 28 to 31, with 24 men and 22 women being named for the last major event before the Sydney Olympic Games.

BOXING
Qamar wins two golds
New Delhi, August 10: Mohammed Ali Qamar stole the thunder by landing two gold medals, beating an array of Olympic qualified boxers, but the stars in the Indian contingent, Jitender Kumar and Dingko Singh rarely got to compete as they grappled with injuries during the 45-day tour of Cuba.

National coach Gurbax Singh Sandhu praised Qamar as the eight- member squad returned here on Thursday. The light flyweight pugilist beat Asian Games gold medallist Suban Punon in the quarterfinals, downed Danilo Lerio of The Philippines 8-4 in the semi-finals before pipping Mascara La Paene of Indonesia 1-0 in the final, earning the solitary point in the last of the four rounds.

Light flyweight Suresh Singh had recovered from a bout of jaundice, while Dingko and Jitender were recuperating from hand injuries. Light heavyweight Gurcharan Singh was returning from a shoulder surgery. In short, all the four qualified boxers were starting from scratch. In the event, Suresh Singh put up a below par fare overall, losing in first rounds.

Dingko Singh won a silver in the first competition in which the tough bouts against the Argentinean and Cuban boxers brought back the pain in his hand forcing him to skip the last two tournaments. Dingko beat Roel Laguna of Philippines 4-0, Ceferino Labarda of Argentina 8-5 and lost to Yusnier Barzaga of Cuba 4-6 to land the silver in the Torney International Juvenil competition.

The coaches were reluctant to field Gurcharan Singh in competition, but the boxer himself was keen to fight, and ended up with a gold and two bronze medals. The gold came by virtue of a walkover Yusleidis Frank Pedro of Cuba. Jitender Kumar opted not to compete and only focussed on training to give adequate time for his injured thumb to get back its strength.

Jeevan Fernandez got a silver in the middleweight class in the first of the three tournaments. In the toughest competition of them all, the Giraldo Cordova Cardin tournament, the Indian pugilists were unable to stand up to the challenge. Ali Qamar and Suresh Singh lost in the first round. The former lost to Yuriorquis Gamboa of Cuba, as the referee stopped the contest in the fourth round, and Suresh lost to Maikros Romero of Cuba 0-5.

Jeevan Fernandez lost in the semi-finals to Jorge Gutierrez of Cuba, as the referee stopped the contest in the second round. Dalvir Singh lost to Arlan Lerio of Philippines 3- 12, while K. Sanjit Singh lost 0-3 to Miguel Coto of Puerto Rico. Gurcharan Singh gave a walkover in the semifinal to Isael Alvarez of Cuba after a bye in the first round.

WRESTLING
Indian grapplers perform well
New Delhi, August, 10: India had its best showing at the Asian junior wrestling championships in the capital last week. The first gold was won by Naresh Kumar, thrashing Mehd Yarahmadi of Iran 9-0 in the 50kg freestyle on Thursday. The Bhiwani grappler's agility got the host a gold which had eluded it in the two previous editions. If Naresh won in style, the other Indian to feature in a final on this day, Chand Ram, failed to put up a good show. Hazi Zadeh took sweet revenge for Iran, racing to a technical superiority (11-0) in the 69kg event, in just 3:34 minutes. Chand Ram was 0-6 down at the end of the first round and it was never a match from then on. His opponent literally had him in knots.

Anil Mann showed enterprise and sound craft in the dying moments to fetch India their second gold medal, in men's 97 kg, to enable them to complete their best ever showing of second overall in men's on Friday. The Delhi-based wrestler defeated favourite Khaleghi Farmh of Iran with a narrow 5-4 points verdict. Shokinder Tomar claimed India's other medal, a silver in the 63 kg class, after going down fighting at 4-6 to Iran's Ghorbani in the final. India finished with two gold, three silver and two bronze which was vastly better than their previous performances.

India also emerged the team title winner of the men's Greco-Roman section, as well as in the women's championship. India could not have hoped for a better performance, having finished runner-up to Iran in the men's freestyle championship. For one that had not won even one gold medal in the previous two editions, it was but a memorable outing.

Mukesh Khatri and Ravinder Patil won India golds in the 54 kg and 63 kg categories, respectively, while Sonika Kaliraman won a gold for India in the women's 75 kg category. Khatri was energetic from the beginning of his bout against Jung- Kyong-Ho or Korea, even though he was the first to concede a point. Similarly, Patil scored a facile 12-0 technical fall verdict over Watanabe Yasno of Japan in under five minutes.

In the women's section, Gurmeet Kaur failed to win a gold for India in the 63 kg event, but Sonika made up in the next bout, the decider in the 73 kg event. Sonika, daughter of famous wrestler Chandgi Ram of Delhi and a student of Sarvodaya Vidyalaya, was a little slow off the blocks. But she was quick to gauge the opponent, pinning her down in just one minute and 25 seconds.

AQUATICS
Indians' performance not upto mark
New Delhi, August 10: Shabbir Hakimuddin's effort to qualify for the Sydney Olympics may have proved futile, but his bronze-winning time in the 200 metres freestyle in the recently concluded Asia-Pacific meet might just about help him gain a berth in the Indian contingent. On the squad's return from Kaohsiung in Chinese Taipei with two gold, two silver and nine bronze medals, Rakesh Gupta, who accompanied the Indian team as FINA referee, said that the overall performance was below expectations. He, however, praised Hakimuddin for winning the bronze in 1:56.11 minutes, though he was outside the qualifying mark of 1:55.07.

"He came the closest to qualifying and thus, brightened his chances of being named by the Swimming Federation of India for the Games,'' indicated Gupta. National coach K.V. Sharma had also suggested that the SFI would select the male swimmer for the Games in a couple of days.

Shikha Tandon and Reshma Millet, who were aiming to qualify in the 50 metres freestyle to join an already-qualified Nisha Millet, disappointed. Shikha's 27.87 seconds and Reshma's 28.08 were way off the qualifying mark of 27.27 in the one-lapper. On M. Usha's gold in the 100m breaststroke in the over-18 category, Gupta said, "Usha was in the company of three Chinese Taipei girls and should consider herself a wee bit lucky to win (in 1:29.62) since the second placed girl Yen Yu-Wen was leading for most part of the race and perhaps slowed down with an idea to inspire her teammate Hsieh Shu-Ting to the silver. But Usha saw her chance and pulled away to snatch the gold,'' said Gupta.

The only other gold for India came in diving with Suparna Paul excelling in a depleted field where China's absence proved beneficial to India. "She did what was expected from her,'' said Gupta of Suparna's performance. Besides the gold in platform diving, Suparna also brought in two silver medals in the springboard.

GOLF
Jyoti Randhawa finishes seventh
Kuala Lumpur, August 10: Wills Indian Open champion Jyoti Randhawa finished a joint seventh after carding one-under-par 71 while other Indians ended way down the leaderboard at the $250,000 Volvo Masters golf tournament. Delhi's Digvijay Singh was tied for the 21st spot after scoring his best round of the tournament - three-under-par 69 - while compatriots Arjun Atwal and Indrajit Bhalotia finshed at 29th and 65th poisitions respectively. Sweden's Stephen Lindskog triumphed at the Volvo Masters after surviving a three-way play-off at Kota Permai Golf and Country Club.

On the first day, Jyoti Randhawa fired a five-under 67 to be a stroke behind Japanese Kazayoshi Yonekura, along with American Ted Purdy, on the opening day of the $250,000 Volvo Masters of Malaysia at the Kota Permai Golf and Country Club on Thursday. A thunderstorm forced the postponement of the afternoon session with 71 players scheduled to complete their first round on Saturday morning.

Among the other Indians, Arjun Atwal and Digvijay Singh shot 71s to be joint 20th. Feroz Ali was on 75, tied for the 52nd slot, while Amish Jaitha had a 79 to be joint 66th. On the second day, Indian golfers fared poorly as rain truncated the day's play in the $250,000 Volvo Masters golf here on Friday. When the play was suspended due to lightining, 69 players including Wills Indian Open champion Jyoti Randhawa had still to complete the second round. After the end of the first round, Randhawa was in the second place with five under 67. Barring Calcutta based Indrajit Bhalotia who carded a par 72 round to total three over 145 in two rounds (73, 72), all the other Indians had over par rounds. Indrajit was lying in joint 20th position.