Taipei City: A prolonged overnight flight, an empty stomach and the unfamiliar terrain did not dither the determination of the Punjab girl as Navjeet Kaur Dhillon turning difficulties in to triumph as she tossed the iron ball to 14.99m to place her nation on the medals table in 16th Asian junior athletics championships here today.
Having set a national mark of 15.89m during the Junior Federation Cup at Chennai last month, Navjeet was earlier predicted to win the top spot in the biennial meet for junior athletes of the continent. However a mess-up in visa application delayed the departure of the Indian Team in Delhi, that eventually caused heavily on some of our top medal contenders including ace sprinter Dutee Chand as well as decathletes Ankit Saini and Amolak Singh.
Dutee Chand missed morning’s 100m heats while Saini and Singh were non-starters in the decathlon. However when the Indian athletes reached the venue for the after-noon session straight from the Airport, they did so without taking any food at all.
Navjeet’s first two throws landed out of sector as she has no time for a training session and hence lost the feel of the ground. However she managed to register 13.34m on her third round. Navjeet improved it to 13.56m on the fifth after made another foul in the fourth round.
Trailing at sixth place in that stage, she realized it is now or never for her to make the podium. Having fully aware of the unexpected ‘miss’ that some her teammates had in the morning schedule and ‘dizzy’ conditions of others competing in the afternoon, Navjeet decided to concentrate fully on her final throw and delivered it to a respectable 14.99m to the joy of everyone concerned. Her throw, however missed the silver medal by just 6 cm.
China’s Xu Jiaqi (16.50m) and Wang Ning-Yue (15.05) took the gold and silver medals in this event respectively.
Rare spoils in junior women’s 5000m
Japan’s Maki Izumida and Kyrgyzstan’s Daria Maslova were locked in to an unprecedented ‘dead-heat’ in junior women’s 5,000m race as they
both timed an identical time of 16:18.35. As the photo-finish could not resolve determining the first place, both the runners were awarded
with gold medals. Sanjivini Jadhav of India finished fifth in 17:00.75.
Qatar’s World junior champion Ashraf Amjad El-Seifiy (79.71m) and World youth champion Ahmed Amgad Alsify (68.90m) were 1-2 in hammer
throw. India’s Prakash Singh (60.34m) and Kapil Mann (59.20m) had finished in sixth and seventh places.
The first day’s proceedings however finished with a disappointing note to India as upcoming quarter-miler G.K. Vijayakumari was disqualified
in 400m heats for lane infringement.