The Hindu : Sport / Athletics : Anju enters final

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Aug 28, 2007
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Sport

Sport - Athletics

Anju enters final

— PHOTO: AP

FIRST TARGET: Anju Bobby George just about managed to make her third consecutive final in the long jump event.

OSAKA: Anju George made Tuesday’s long jump final with an effort of 6.60metres in the qualifying round on Monday, the third day of the World athletics championships.

The 30-year-old Indian finished 11th out of 12 qualifiers for the final with her performance that came in her opening jump, but she had the satisfaction of having made the Worlds final for the third consecutive time. She had one more jump of 6.59m but fouled her third attempt.

Lyudmila Kolchanova of Russia and Naide Gomes of Portugal led the qualifiers into the final with 6.96m each while Brazilian Maurren Higa Maggi had 6.95m.

Qualification mark

One of the favourites, Russian Tatyana Lebedeva, had a 6.84m in her only jump while another Russian Tatyana Kotova had 6.73m. Defending champion Tianna Madison of the U.S. was the last qualifier at 6.59m. The automatic qualification mark was 6.75m.

Anju had finished fifth in the last edition in Helsinki (6.66m) and had claimed the bronze, India’s only medal so far in the World meet, in Paris in 2003. She had qualified for Osaka with her 6.65m performance in the Asian championships in Amman last month. That result also enabled her to qualify for the Beijing Olympics. The qualifying mark for Beijing is 6.60m.

Poonia bows out

Woman discus thrower Krishna Poonia ended up 23rd out of 28 competitors in the qualifying round on Monday with a third-round throw of 57.17m. She was 11th in her group. Going into this meet, she had a season best 58.80m, achieved in Patiala in May and a personal best 61.53m, her bronze-winning mark in the Doha Asian Games.

Two Chinese were among the qualifiers in discus, Ma Xuejun (60.89m) and Sun Taifeng (61.99m). However, Asian Games champion Song Aimin (60.10m), also of China, failed to make it. Defending champion and favourite Franka Dietizsch of Germany led the qualifiers with 65.17.

Apart from Anju’s final appearance on Tuesday, only the Indian women’s 4x400m relay team is left in the field. The qualifying round in the longer relay is scheduled for September 1 and the final on the concluding day on September 2.

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