Jagdish Bishnoi win javelin gold

Javelin thrower Jagdish Bishnoi led the charge with a gold medal as India finished the third day of the Asian Track and Field athletic meet in Jakarta with seven medals, including four silvers and two bronze, on Wednesday.

India's medal tally has thus swelled to 13 - - four gold, seven silver and two bronze.

It was a great third day for the Indians, but they had to wait till the last event at the floodlit stadium to add the fourth gold to their kitty.

Bishnoi continued India's strong showing in the throwing events with an excellent display. His effort of 76.81 meters was good enough to give him the title.

"The depth in this event in India allowed me to improve and today's competition seemed mediocre," said a jubilant Bishnoi.

"Even though this is three meters short of my best, I think it is great performance as I do not remember any Indian having won the gold in this event at the Asian level," he added.

Korea's Chu Ki Young got the silver with an effort of 75.27 metres and Sun Shipeng of China the bronze with a throw of 74.34 metres.

Gurmeet Kaur started the day with a silver in the women's javelin throw. The evening session produced a gold, three more silvers and two bronze medals for the Indians.

Gurmeet steadily improved on her throws to achieve a high of 55.65 metres and bag the silver.

Unlike the other events, Gurmeet was up against all top throwers, like Zhang Li of China and Lee Young Sun of Korea.

Zhang is credited with an effort of 62.14 metres which is the Asian Track and Field championship record, while Lee Young Sun has been amongst the top javelin throwers in Asia.

Gurmeet, who claimed a bronze medal at the 1998 Bangkok Asian Games, began with a foul followed by efforts of 53.01m and 52.96m. Her fourth attempt of 55.65m left her 13 cm short of Sun's best effort of 55.78m.

She passed her fifth throw to concentrate on the one final attempt in a bid to claim the gold. However, she fouled on that one and had to settle for the silver. Zhangli won the bronze with a throw of 55.46 metres.

Earlier in the morning, the women's 10-km walkers of China dominated the event, claiming the gold and silver medals. Both Li Hong and Sun Chunfang set new championship records clocking 44:59.90 seconds and 45:42.68 seconds to better the old mark of 45:58.76 seconds, set by Feng Haixia of China.

India's great improvement in the sprints over the last few years was reflected in the 100 metres final for men and women. First to race were the women and even though Rachita Mistry had been running in great form up to the Asian meet, Saraswati's form in the early rounds here had been impressive.

Quick off the blocks, Saraswati ran an excellent race to finish second behind Lyubov Pereplova of Uzbekistan. Saraswati upset the fancied Rahita Mistry to win the silver in a career-best time of 11.40 seconds. Rachita timed 11.46 seconds.

There was a pleasant surprise in the men's 100 metres as Anil Kumar lived up to the promise he has been showing in the domestic meets when he led nearly till the 80 metre mark but was narrowly beaten to the silver medal by the fast finishing Saudi Arabian, who clocked 10.32 seconds to the Indian's 10.35 seconds.

This was a great effort. The last Indian man to win a medal in the sprints was R Gnanasekharan in the 1970s.

Related reports:

Shakti, Neelam win gold
Golden leap by Bobby Aloysious

UNI