Arpinder books CWG berth

Karam Prakash

Tribune News Service

PATIALA, MARCH 8

Punjab triple-jumper Arpinder Singh edged beyond the Commonwealth Games qualifying mark of 16.60 metres by a whisker with a jump of 16.61m, in the process winning gold on the last day of the 22nd Federation Cup today.

Arpinder, winner of a bronze medal at the Glasgow Commonwealth in 2014, made his dream jump only in his fifth attempt today. Before the jump that qualified him for next month’s CWG, Singh faced tough competition from national record-holder Renjith Maheshwary.

After winning the title, Arpinder told The Tribune: “I struggled in my first few attempts as my landing was not proper, but I did what I could in the fifth attempt.”

Arpinder trains under Bedros Bedrosian of Romania and Indian expert Sanjay Rai in Trivandrum.

“I am confident of winning medal in this CWG also,” Arpinder said.

Dharun surprise

The surprise of the day was the tremendous run by Dharun Ayyasamy of Tamil Nadu, who smashed the national and meet records by clocking 49.45s in the men’s 400m hurdles.

An All-India Inter University silver medallist, Ayyasamy said: “Even I myself am surprised that I broke a decade-old national record! I was not confident as I have not recovered completely from the typhoid I was suffering from until 10 days ago.”

Ayyasamy, training under foreign coach Galina Bukharina, had a chin bone fracture in December 2016, which forced him to stay away from training for a long time. “Before I joined the national camp in November last year, I used to run 400m flat,” he said. “It was coach Galina who asked me to run 400m hurdles, and it gave me the result.”

Surprisingly, Ayyasamy had been suffering from typhoid and in fact, finished at the bottom in last week’s Indian Grand Prix-1 with a timing of 50.51s.

Ayyasamy, who was part of the Indian 4x400m relay team at the Rio Olympics, crossed the finish line in the hurdles event in 49.45 seconds to erase the old mark of 49.51 seconds set by Joseph Abraham in Osaka in 2007.

Painful exit

Triple-jumper Renjith Maheshwary had a painful exit as he was stretchered off the field with knee and finger injuries. Sprinting in for his fifth attempt, Maheshwary slipped on the track just before taking off and fell down, and was immediately rushed to hospital.

On-field doctors’ opinion was that he had suffered a dislocation of the left knee patella (knee cap), apart from a fracture in the ring finger of his right hand.

Heartbreak

Jinson Johnson of Kerala was a man in emotional turmoil as he missed qualifying for CWG by 19 cantiseconds, or 0.19 seconds, in the men’s 1,500m. Johnson clocked 3 minutes, 39.69 seconds while the qualification mark is 3:39:50. His timing, however, was good enough for a new meet record and the gold medal. 

Steeplechase runner Sudha Singh missed out on the CWG qualifying mark as she timed 9m, 50.78s in the women’s 3,000m steeplechase.