Susanthika gearing for Olympic challenge

Dinesh WEERAWANSA in Beijing

Ace Sri Lanka woman sprinter Susanthika Jayasinghe had a long work out this morning as she prepares to bag another Olympic medal after eight years. Dazzling gazelle Jayasinghe, who rewrote Sri Lanka’s Olympic history at the Sydney 2000 Games winning her country’s first Olympic medal in 52 years, will be looking for glory at the Beijing Olympic Games here.

The 32-year-old veteran woman sprinter, who proved that she has not lost her old touch with her second IAAF World Championship medal in Osaka last year, will be competing in women’s 200m event of which the first round heats are scheduled for July 19.

Jayasinghe is fresh after a six-month stint in Los Angeles where she has been training under American coach Tony Campbell, the man who guided her to Olympic glory at the Sydney 2000 Games. In order to fully concentrate on her pet event, Jayasinghe will not be competing in women’s 100m here.

“I am in a better shape now. My training in the US helped me to be in perfect shape for the Olympics. Once again, my aim is to make my country proud,” the Lankan sprint queen said after today’s practice session.

But she did not want to talk about her chances here. “Let’s tale everything step by step. Right now, I am concentrating on the first round heats. You have to wait and see how it goes.

That was exactly what I did on my way to my Olympic medal in Sydney, taking race by race and concentrating on my goals step by step,” Jayasinghe said without elaborating anything on her medal chances.

Even at the last IAAF World Championships in Osaka, Japan, only a few people put their bets on Jayasinghe who has now reached the final lap of her distinguish track and field career.

Yet, she reached that gigantic task winning her second medal - a bronze, in the World Championship. In 1997, she became the first Asian to win a medal in the history of the IAAF World Championship, winning women’s 200m silver behind Zahana Pintusevich-Block.

Chinese dominance

Meanwhile, China dominated men’s gymnastics competition of the Beijing 2008 Games today, winning the team ‘gold’ with a total of 286.125 points.

Japan won the silver medal with 278.875 points and the United States won the bronze medal with 275.850 points.

Hosts China performed modestly on its first two apparatuses, the floor exercise and pommel, but blew the field away with a masterful display in both the rings and vault. A relaxed and smiling Chinese team was led by its veterans, Huang Xu, Yang Wei and Li Xiaopeng.

Huang performed well in the Rings, scoring 16.000. However, his performance was just a taste of things to come because Yang and Chen Yibing scored 16.300 and 16.575 in the Rings respectively, helping China be the top-ranking team on the apparatus.

All-Around specialist Yang continued his impressive form by scoring a high 16.600 in the Vault. Li then ensured that China would also be the highest-scoring team in the Vault by scoring 16.775, taking China’s score in the Vault to 49.325. The host nation practically secured its gold medal by the end of the fifth rotation, dominating the Parallel Bars. All three Chinese gymnasts, Huang, Yang and Li, scored over 16 points on the apparatus.

China still managed to be the best-performed team in the Horizontal Bar, despite the apparatus being seen as one of the team’s weak links.

Youngster Zou Kai finished off China’s gold-medal-winning performance by scoring 15.975 - the best individual performance in the Horizontal Bar.

Prior to the Team final, Japan was seen as China’s main rival for the gold medal. However, Japan rarely threatened China and was only able to trump China in the Floor Exercise.

Tan Zongliang, who represented the host nation, will regret his first and last shot in the final of the Men’s 50m Pistol for a long time.

The 7.9 points from his first shot, the worst among all his shots in the final, wrote off the two-point lead that he gained in the qualification round. In the qualification round, Tan shot a total of 565, while the other five shooters were tied on 563.

Tan’s mistake gave Jin Jong-oh of the Republic of Korea the opportunity to win the gold medal with a final score of 660.4.

The silver medal was won by North Korean Kim Jong-su, who shot a final score of 660.2, while Tan won a consolation bronze with a final score of 659.5. Jin still gave Tan a chance to secure the first place though.

Kim only scored 8.2 on his last shot, which meant second-placed Tan could still win gold if he scored more than 10.1 on his last shot. Tan, however, could only shoot 9.2 and instead of winning gold, Tan bid farewell to silver as well because Kim overtook Tan with an outstanding 10.5 on his last shot.