India's half-marathoners fail to impress in WUG; relay teams show promise

Rhine-Ruhr, Essen (Germany), Jul 26 (PTI) India’s strong presence in half-marathon came to naught as none of the 10 runners in men’s and women’s sections could finish on the podium, even as a couple of personal best were recorded on a disappointing penultimate day of the World University Games here Saturday.

The Indian men’s and women’s 4X400m relay teams though set season’s best times to qualify for the finals in style.

Among the five Indian distance runners in the men’s section, Mohit and Mohit Choudhary, recorded personal best times of 1:04:08 seconds and 1:06:51 seconds to finish sixth and 21st respectively in the gruelling event. Three others, Arun Dhansing Rathod (26th), Shubham Baliyan (32nd) and Ankit Deswal (36th) clocked 1:07:19 sec, 1:08:32 sec and 1:09:07 sec respectively, raising a question mark on the selection of the distance runners.

Shinsaku Kudo smashed the WUG record in the event, finishing the race in 1:02:29 seconds to take the gold, while Ramazan Bastug (1:02:35) of Turkey took the silver and another Japanese Ryuto Uehara (1:02:39 sec) bagged the bronze.

The women’s half-marathon too didn’t throw up any interesting results for the Indian runners with Jyoti clocking 1:21:22 seconds to finish 21st in a field of 27 runners.

China’s Ma Xiuzhen finished a good nine minutes ahead to take the gold with a personal best time of 1:12:48 seconds.

Aarti Arjun Pawara (1:22.350) was 22nd, while Rinkee Pawara, Basanti Kumari and Svati Pal finished 24th, 25th and 26th respectively to end their campaign on a disappointing note.

Relay teams show promise ================= The men’s and women’s relay teams showcased their class by qualifying for the finals.

The men’s 4x400m relay team clocked a season’s best time of 3:06.56 seconds to finish second behind Poland in Heat 2, while the women’s 4x400m quartet also recorded a season’s best of 3:35.12 seconds to make the title round placed second in Heat 1.

India’s triple jumper Poorva Sawant’s campaign ended in the preliminary round with the 22-year-old from Mumbai finishing ninth in qualification with a leap of 12.82 metres.

Kiran Mhatre finished 16th and last in the 5000m event, timing 15:16.57 seconds, with the gold going to France’s Arthur Gervais, who timed 15:02.00.

It was a dispiriting show in women’s triple jump qualification with Sandra Babu finishing 11th in a 12-player preliminary round with a lunge of 11.98m.

India could add to their medals tally in athletics later in the day with Praveen Chithravel in contention in the triple jump final.

India has so far won five medals, including a gold, silver and three bronze medals. PTI AM AM AT AT