The Hindu : Sport / Athletics : Susmita makes Olympic grade

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Sport - Athletics

Susmita makes Olympic grade

K. P. Mohan

— Photo: A.M. Faruqui

Susmita Singha Roy.

BHOPAL: Fourteen months ago, she was ready to end her blossoming athletics career after being unfairly dropped from the team for the Doha Asian Games.

On Wednesday, as she finished the 800 metres in the heptathlon to become the first Indian athlete this year to make the Olympics standard, Susmita Singha Roy must have felt more than a sense of satisfaction.

By compiling 5866 points in the seven-event exercise spread over two days, Susmita bettered the single entry norm for the Olympics (5800) though she, as well as coach Kuntal Roy, would have been a lot happier had she achieved the ’A’ standard of 6000 points.

They were aiming for at least 5900.

Joins Anju

Susmita joins long jumper Anju George, triple jumper Renjith Maheswary and discus thrower Vikas Gowda in the list of qualified Indian athletes for the Bejing Olympic Games. The other three had attained the norms in competitions last year.

“The 800 could have been better,” said Susmita.

“Of course, hurdles and shot put also should have been a lot better,” she quickly added about her previous day’s performance. She clocked 2:18.28 as against her best of 2:16.72.

“She was doing below 14 in hurdles and 12.40 to 12.50 in shot put,” said Dr Roy.

She did the 100m hurdles in 14.09s and high jumped 1.58 metres.

The 23-year-old Bengal girl had personal bests in 200m (23.97s), long jump (6.25m) and javelin (40.11m) as well. Her previous bests were 24.13, 6.17 and 38.69 respectively.

The 200m and long jump marks had come in New Delhi in March 2006 when she touched a career-best 5872 points in the Federation Cup.

Bugbear

Javelin had been her bugbear, quite often forcing her to drop well behind going into the final event after having led throughout.

Dr Roy said that Susmita had received advice from foreign experts, “spending our own money” in correcting her javelin technique and opined that she could touch 48 metres in the event.

Soma Biswas was also a little disappointed with her 5779 for the silver.

Kuldev Singh returned a personal best 50.48 seconds for the 400m hurdles, in which a prominent absentee was national record holder Joseph Abraham.

Sinimole Paulose had a 2:03.25 for the women’s 800 metres that was well short of the Olympic standard of 2:01.30.

K. Sowjanya, a junior girl from Andhra, had her first senior title as she won the 200 metres ahead of 100m winner and team-mate H. M. Jyothi.

The results:

Men: 200m: 1. P. Muthuswamy (TN) 21.79, 2. Ritesh Anand (Jkd) 21.82, 3. Vilas Neelgund (Kar) 22.05; 800m: 1. Ramesan Rajeev (Ker) 1:54.15, 2. Sajeesh Joseph (Ker) 1:54.18, 3. Ghamanda Ram (ASCB) 1:54.78; 400m hurdles: 1. Kuldev Singh (P. Pol) 50.48, 2. P. Shanker (NGC) 51.01, 3. Ranjodh Singh (P. Pol) 52.54; Javelin: 1. Kashi Nath Naik (ASCB) 73.02, 2. Purandar P. J. (UP) 70.51, 3. Sandeep Yadav (UP) 69.78; 20,000m walk: 1. Gurmeet Singh (P. Pol) 1:34:04.23, 2. Ashok Kumar Patel (Chattisgarh) 1:34:36.05, 3. Hari Ram Yadav (UP) 1:36:22.53.

Women: 200m: 1. K. Sowjanya (AP) 24.39, 2. H. M. Jyothi (AP) 24.51, 3. Poovamma M. R. (Kar) 24.75; 800m: 1. Sinimole Paulose (Jkd) 2:03.25, 2. Sushma Devi (Del) 2:03.81, Bindhu S. R. (Ker) 2:08.48; 400m hurdles: 1. V. Leelavathy (Indian Bank) 59.84, 2. Harpreet Kaur (Jkd) 1:00.08, 3. Shiji John C. (Ker) 1:02.58; Triple jump: 1. Mayooka Johnny (Ker) 13.34, 2. M. A. Prajusha (Ker) 12.65, 3. Alka Chikili (Ker) 12.44; Heptathlon: 1. Susmita Singha Roy (Ben) 5866 points, 2. Soma Biswas (Ben) 5779, 3. J. J. Shobha (AP) 5575.