Krishna Poonia wins silver medal in Portland meet

New Delhi: India's London-bound discus thrower Krishna Poonia bagged the silver medal at the Post Pre Elite Womens' event at Portland, US, but the effort was way behind her last month's national record-breaking feat.

Poonia finished second with a throw of 62.34 metres, Monday, while the gold went to Russian Darya Pischalnickova with an effort of 66.38 metres in her fifth throw.

Poonia though improved her performance as compared to the Perfontaine Classic Diamond League Meet at Eugene, two days ago, when she missed a podium finish managing only 62.11 metres.

Poonia's performance Monday was way behind her last month's silver winning performance at the Altius Track Crew Throwdown meet in Hawaii's Maui Island, where she bettered the national record with a throw of 64.76m. Poonia broke Seema Antil's record of 64.64m, set in Chennai in 2004.

The Indian's performance is 17th best of the season, way behind Germany's Nadine Muller, favourite to win the gold in London.

A silver medallist at last year's World Championships, Nadine's best this season is 68.89 metres. Besides Nadine, Cuba's Yarelys Barrios (68.03 metres) has the second best distance while China's Yanfeng Li (65.85 metres) and Jian Tan (64.90 metres) have also produced better marks than Poonia.

The 29-year-old Poonia, who was the first Indian to win a Commonwealth Games gold medal in athletics since Milkha Singh at Cardiff in 1958, has been sweating it out at the Portland training centre under the guidance of 1976 Olympic champion Mac Wilkins.

Curiously her Commonwealth gold came for 61.51 metres while her 61.94 metres got her only the bronze at the Guangzhou Asian Games. Even her Doha Asian Games bronze in 2006 came at 61.53 metres. (IANS)