Mahitha Mohan bagged a gold and a bronze to give India a bright start on the opening day of the four-nation invitational cycling event, a ‘test' event for the Commonwealth Games, at the newly-built velodrome in the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex here on Friday.
Mahitha's spirited performance gave her a win in the women's 10km scratch race. A double gold medallist in the South Asian Games, Mahitha preserved her energy till the end and increased her speed in the last two laps to land the gold medal.
Australia's Rebecca Halliday took the silver while the bronze went to Rajani Vijayakumari of India. Later, Mahitha collected the women's individual pursuit bronze.
Not yet ready
Meanwhile, the venue did not appear to be fully ready for the Commonwealth Games.
A lot of finishing jobs are yet to be completed and it might take a few more weeks to make the velodrome ready for the mega event.
The wooden track had some water marks on it because of the leaking roof during heavy rains which had lashed the city a few days back.
However, according to women's coach Ruma Chattopadhyay, the dampness was no more there on the track and the cyclists faced no problems either during the practice or the competition.
In the absence of a scoreboard flashing timings, one could not track the athletes' progress during time trial and individual pursuit competitions.
The results (Indians unless specified):
Men: 1000m time trial: 1. M. Fakiruddin Daud (Mal) (1:07.764); 2. O. Bikram Singh (1:08.324); 3. Farhan Amri Zaid (Mal) (1:08.383).
4000m individual pursuit: 1. Stephen Hall (Aus) (4:57.101); 2. Rajender Bishnoi (4:58.561); 3. Sombir (1 lap).
Women: 10km scratch: 1. Mahitha Mohan; 2. Rebecca Halliday (Aus); 3. Rajani Vijayakumari.
500m time trial: 1. Ting-Ying Huang (Tpe) (36.307); 2. Ch. Rameshwori Devi (37.772); 3. Rajani Vijayakumari (39.270).
3000m individual pursuit: 1. Fang-Ju I (Tpe) (3:56.531); 2. Rebecca Halliday (Aus) (5 laps); 3. Mahitha Mohan (4:12.519).
Keywords: Commonwealth Games