For a youngster who has a personal best of 1:50.60s, Anu Kumar was more than three seconds slower in the biggest 800m race of his life. That, however, did not matter as Anu won gold in the 18th Asian junior athletics championship on Saturday.
The Uttarakhand athlete — a silver medallist at the World School Games in France earlier — clocked 1:54.11s. He was faster in the heats in the morning.
The other Indian, Tamil Nadu’s Sreekiran Nandakumar, also qualified for the final but he did not run the race. “The team manager gave a letter saying that he had a severe migraine,” said Athletics Federation of India Secretary C.K. Valson, who is a leading technical official at the meet.
After winning six medals on Friday, India had a quieter day on the championship’s penultimate day, winning just two bronze medals apart from Anu’s gold.
They came from Punjab’s Aparndeep Kaur Bajwa in women’s discus and from the men’s 4x100m relay team. Meanwhile Jisna Mathew, who had won the 400m on Friday, topped her heat and qualified for the women’s 200m final.
The results: Men: 800m: 1. Anu Kumar (Ind) 1:54.11s, Sreekiran Nandakumar (Ind) DNS. 110m hurdles: 1. Lu Hao-Hua (Tpe) 13.61s. 3000m steeple chase: 1. Saife Saifeldin (Qat) 8:51.97s. 7. Vicky Goswami (Ind) 9:31.25, 8. R. Raghav (Ind) 9:38.25. 4x100m relay: 1. Japan (39.65s), 3. India (Prajwal Mandanna, Akash Kumar, Nithin Balakumar, Gurvinder Singh) 40.75. Javelin: 1. Liu Zhekai (Chn) 70.53m. Discus: 1. Hossain Rasouli (Irn) 62.29s MR, OR 60.49.
Women: 800m: 1. Ayaka Kawata (Jpn) 2:04.14s. 5. Durga Deore (Ind) 2:12.82. 100m hurdles: 1. Yuiri Yoshida (Jpn) 13.45s, 7. Sapna Kumari (Ind) 13.96. 4x100m relay: 1. China (45.06s). 3000m steeple chase: 1. Maristela Wasanthi (Sri) 10:21.54s. Long jump: 1. Ayaka Kora (Jpn) 6.44m, 7. Deepanshi Singh (Ind) 5.66. Pole vault: 1. Wu Zuocheng (Chn) 4m. Discus: 1. Yang Huanhuan (Chn) 51.5m, 3. Arpandeep Kaur Bajwa (Ind) 45.59, 4. Karuniya Muthu Ramalingam (Ind) 45.59 .
