Photo: Sandeep Saxena

CREDITABLE SHOW: Railways' O.P. Jaisha (552) and Steel Plants' Sinimole Paulose (720), won the gold and silver respectively in the women's 1,500m.

NEW DELHI: O. P. Jaisha and Sinimole Paulose clocked career-best timings in the 1,500 metres to compensate for the overall lack of enthusiasm on the part of the top athletes on the second day of the 46th Open National athletics championships at the Nehru Stadium here on Thursday.

Jaisha kept up a front running that Sinimole found hard to match and though she, as well as S. Shanthi, kept up the chase till the bell, there was no challenge as such to Jaisha till the end.

When Jaisha and Sinimole, started pulling away on the last back straight, Shanthi, who won the SA Games title recently, was found wanting. Sinimole tried her best over the straight but Jaisha, the 23-year-old from Idukki, just held on towards the finish to win in 4:11.83. Sinimole had a 4:12.24. Both were within the Asiad qualification norm of 4:14.15.

Hamza bags metric mile

C. Hamza won the men's metric mile in 3:44.76, a shade under his SA Games timing, but quite good all the same considering the lack of competition he had in a crowded field.

In what has become a sickening routine in important national meets, especially in the run-up to major games, some of the top athletes, being groomed for the Doha Asian Games, withdrew from the contests at the last moment, leaving the meet look nothing more than a departmental competition.

The prominent athletes to skip included shot putter Navpreet Singh, long jumper Amritpal Singh and woman 400m hurdles runner Ashik Beevi, who was part of the squad that trained in Ukraine for two months and who was tipped to be a hot contender for the 400m title here.

Injuries are trotted as excuses for non-participation but the federation has hardly ever attempted to go deeper into the reasons behind such last-minute pullouts. Apart from the withdrawals, two of the top-ranked quarter-milers of the country, P. Shankar and S. Sreenivas, dropped out of the 400m semifinals, thickening the `withdrawal plot' further.

Satyendra wins

Satyendra Kumar Singh of Railways won the men's shot put title with 18.53, just eight centimetres short of his best recorded at the AFI-Salwan meet last week. With Navpreet Singh pulling out once again, after the AFI had confirmed his entry only two days ago, the contest had lost almost all relevance in the Asian Games perspective. Still, Satyendra can have the satisfaction that he managed a mark above 18.50.

Jaiveer Singh with 17.93 and Sourabh Vij with a personal best 17.55 took the silver and bronze respectively.

National record-holder Hardeep Kaur was upstaged by Ritu Rani in women's hammer throw. Hardeep who had a 61.10 in the Salwan meet, on her comeback from a doping suspension, could manage only 56.58 this time. Rani had 59.23.

The results:

Men: 1,500m: 1. C. Hamza (Ser) 3:44.76, 2. Sunil Kumar (Rly) 3:51.66, 3. Sandeep Kumar (Ser) 3:52.06.

Shot put: 1. Satyendra Kumar Singh (Rly) 18.53, 2. Jaiveer Singh (Ser) 17.93, 3. Sourabh Vij (Del) 17.55.

Women: 1,500m: 1. O.P. Jaisha (Rly) 4:11.83 (NMR, previous 4:16.48), 2. Sinimole Paulose (Steel Plants) 4:12.24, 3. S. Shanthi (TN) 4:22.93.

High jump: 1. Sahana Kumari (Rly) 1.74, 2. Tessymol Joseph (Rly) 1.74, 3. Harshini Kumari (LIC) 1.65.

Hammer: 1. Ritu Rani (Rly) 59.23, 2. Hardeep Kaur (Pun) 56.58, 3. Usma Dariyan (Rly) 56.21.

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