Golden leap by Bobby Aloysius

National high jump record holder Bobby Aloysious leapt spectacularly to a gold medal winning height of 1.83 metres in her first attempt to help India retain its overall lead on the second day at the Asian Track and Field Championships in Jakarta on Tuesday.

Aloysious's effort was .03 metres off her national mark (1.86m), set in Colombo 1998, but with the field shorn of star athletes, the Indian had no trouble claiming the honours.

India, with three gold and silver medals each, clung to its top position in the medals tally for the second successive day - an impressive performance by any standards.

China managed one gold on Tuesday through Wu Ping in the 20 km walk, to stay in second position with two gold, three silver and three bronze medals. Japan (2-2-3), Kazakhstan (2-1-1-) and Qatar (2-1-0) are following the leaders.

Hepthathlete G G Pramila, who was lying fourth in the seven-discipline event on Monday, made a brilliant effort to garner an aggregate of 6,016 points, 44 behind gold medal winner Svetlana Kazanina of Kazakhstan, and land a silver medal for the country.

Indian sprinters - Anil Kumar, Rachita Mistry and Vineeta Tripathi - made classy efforts to reach the finals of the glamour events even as Rajiv Balakrishnan failed to qualify.

Anil Kumar raced in an excellent time of 10.47 second in 100 metres dash in the heats to qualify comfortably, while Vineeta and Rachita made it to the women's 200m finals with impressive heat timings.