India’s gold hunt at Asian GP pales before Lankan challenge

‘‘It is not my timing. I always do below 52. I have just recovered from my back injury. I did not have the finishing power to beat Svetlana’s challenge,’’ said Darsha.

Svetlana began in good style with Darsha closely following her. But midway through the race, Darsha pushed Svetlana. However, Svetlana, with strong strides, cruised home comfortably. ‘‘I did try to push her in the last 100 metres but I did not have the sufficient strength,’’ said Darsha, who had won the 400 metres gold at the Busan Asiad. ‘‘I will definitely give an improved performance in the next leg,’’ said Darsha, who finished with a timing 52.78. India’s S Geetha took the bronze.

Susanthika had a bad start because of ‘bad blocks’ but managed to hold on Guzel. It turned out to be a good race as the Lankan athlete had to push herself in the last 50 metres before squeezing home much to the delight of the sparse crowd. Susanthika, the 200 metres bronze medallist in Sydney Olympics, said later she was surprised by the rival’s strong race. ‘‘I was surprised by the Uzbek girl ran initially and I had to put 80 per cent of my effort to ward off the challenge. In fact, I initially thought I would take it easy but as the race went on , I was determined to finish first,’’ said Susanthika.

Chernovol Gennadiy of Kazakhstan emerged as the fastest athlete of the meet when he clocked 10.42 seconds to win the men’s 100 metres gold. India had a setback of sorts when Anil Kumar was pushed to the second spot by Abbas Samimi in the men’s discus. Anil Kumar, who has been training in Hungary for the last two years, threw to a distance of 57.83 m.