Darsha and Manjula win golds

by Dinesh Weerawansa

Gold medals on the final day by veteran woman sprinter Damayanthi Darsha and the US-based young high jumper Manjula Kumara Wijesekera helped Sri Lanka to secure the sixth place in the final medals table ahead of much fancied South Korea and Uzbekistan at the 16th Asian Athletic Championships concluded at Munhak Stadium in Incheon, South Korea on Sunday night.

It was even more creditable performance by the Lankan athletes Darsha, Wijesekera, sprinters Prasanna Amarasekera and Rohan Pradeep Kumara Fernando as they turned Sri Lanka's disgrace in to grace after the first day's shock news of three of their team mates going missing, two of them even before their respective events.

Both Darsha and Wijesekera made good come backs. Asian Games triple gold medallist Darsha signalled her return to the international track after over two years due to a leg injury with a superb run in women's 200m final. On the other hand, Wijesekera equalled his personal best height of 2.27m after an year, that too in less than a month after he painted a poor picture with a 2.15m first round exit at the IAAF World Championships in Helsinki last month.

With the silver medals won by Amarasekera in men's 400m and men's 4 x 400m relay team comprising of Amarasekera, Rohan Pradeep, Manura Lanka and Rohitha Pushpakumara, Sri Lanka ended with two gold medals, two silver and two bronze medals, ahead of seventh placed Korea (one gold, seven silver and a bronze) and eighth placed Uzbekistan (one gold, three silver and a bronze).

China were on target in producing champion stuff for the 2008 Olympic Games as the hosts. They underlined their Asian supremacy with a rich haul of 15 gold medals, 7 silver and 10 bronze to end on top of the final medals tally.

In the second places were Japan with six gold, five silver and 12 bronze, followed by Qatar (6-3-3), India (4-5-4) and Saudi Arabia (4-1-1). India's best performance in the championship history is a warning for Sri Lanka with South Asian Games to come next year.

Eighteen-year-old Majid Saeed Sultan pushed back his bitter memories in Finland last month to come out with an outstanding display of front running to clock a championship record of 1:44.27 to win the men's 800m.

The Qatari youngster, unfortunate to be disqualified at Helsinki, drew the best out of the other two medallists as well, with his team-mate Abdulrahman Suleiman clocking a personal best 1:44.73 for the silver and Iranian Sadjad Moradi recording a National record of 1:44.74 for the bronze.

Despite their overall dominance, the final day did not belong to China though that country comfortably topped the medal standings with a 15-7-10 gold-silver-bronze tally. In fact, China managed just one gold on the last day when 16 finals were gone through. There was a resurgent Saudi Arabia, which took the men's 200m and the 400m Hurdles gold through Hamed Al-Bishi and Hadi Soua'an Al-Somaily respectively.

Indian Anju Bobby George, competing in the Asian meet for the first time, also won narrowly. She had a 6.65 in the fourth round while Filipino Marestella Torres responded with 6.63 in the fifth. Both fouled their last attempts.

India had their own share as Manjeet and Geetha ran away from the field for a shut-out gold-silver finish. Manjeet clocked 51.50, her second best behind her national record of 51.05, while Geetha, a former Asian junior champion, was timed in a personal best of 51.75 for the silver. Japan's Asami Tanno took the bronze in 52.91.

Gao Shuying posted an Asian women's Pole Vault record of 4.53m as a total of ten new records were established during the four-day meet.

World Junior champion Ehsan Hadadi posted an Asian record of 65.25m on way to upstaging a clutch of favourites and clinching the men's Discus Throw gold. The 20-year-old Iranian came up with an opening throw that went beyond all the markers on the field, indicating various records, and from then on, everyone else in the fray was under pressure to produce one big throw that never came.

Olympic champion Liu Xiang negotiated the preliminary round of the 110m hurdles with customary ease, clocking 13.65 seconds.