Usha anchors relay gold

the baton in the fourth place, she streaked across the line, only to find the Chinese already there. Never mind, she was still satisfied with the smile in place. And there was another national record to boot in 44.43 seconds.

Back to business again for the 4×400 metres relay. In between came the announcement that would mean India would have at least one gold medal to show for all the fine peformances here.

China were disqualified as the third and fourth leg runners, Huang Mei and Cui Danfeng went past the zone while exchanging the stick,and India was awarded the gold.

Usha, it seemed would finally get India a gold on its own steam and without the track judges when Jyotirmoyee Sikdar gave her the baton in the first place as the last leg of the 4x400m relay got under way. But a fresh Chen Yuxiang overhauled a tired Usha on the 200m mark and cruised through to the gold. Usha, after six races in four days looked a little stiff, but gave ample indication that she was going to be the one her rivals will have to worry about at the Bangkok Asian Games. Usha was beaten comprehensively in the 200m where Jiankui and Huang Mei simply pulled away from the start. Still her time of 23.27s was the same as her own personal best, which is also the National record. She had clocked the same in the semi-finals.Yan Jiankui equalled meet record of 23.00s, which stood in the name of Susantika Jayasinghe, who according to the Lankan delegation was cleared of her drug charges today.

Gulab Chand, with a brilliant run in the 5,000m, had the more experiencedJapanese including double gold medallist at the Asian Games in 1994, Toshinori Takaoka worried. The bronze in the 10,000m with a fine tactical race seemed to have done him wonders. Gulab stayed with the lead pack all through. Initially it was India’s second entry Harish Tiwari who set the pace by doing the lead running for about five laps. Then he fell back but Gulab stayed with the leaders.

With 300m to go Gulab made his move and actually went ahead. But Takaoka, who obviously had much more in reserve made light of that challenge and Gulab had to be content with a silver.

His time of 13:55.40s not only gave him a silver and a personal best but also made him only the third man after Raj Kumar and Bahadur Prasad to crack the 14-minute barrier for the 5,000m. Takaoka won in 13:5.34s and Ahmad Ibrahim Hashim of Qatar was third.

Neelam Singh had every right to be disappointed as the event was stopped hastily when rain came on Tuesday. On Wednesday in dry and hot conditions, China’s Yu Yuxin found her touch.She first overtook Neelam and then went further with 57.47m. Neelam whose best yesterday was 56.35m went to 56.81m but it stayed a silver.

Ajit Bhaduria, winner of discus in 1993, and looking forward to just another one or two years in the sport took the bronze. The men’s 4x400m relay team at least had the satisfaction of clocking a new national record, but what was striking about the race was Sugath Tillekeratne’s brilliant anchor leg. Taking the baton almost three metres behind Paramjit Singh he finished almost five metres ahead of the Indian. But further ahead of the Indo-Lanka battle were the Japanese and the Koreans. The Japanese set a new meet record of 3:02.21 seconds erasing their own mark set in 1991.