Toor rules Asia again

Bangkok, July 14

India’s shot putter Tajinderpal Singh Toor stamped his authority on the continental circuit by defending his Asian Athletics Championships title but limped out of the competition after his gold-winning second-round throw here today.

The Asian record holder sent the iron ball to a distance of 20.23 metres in his second-round throw but ended up injuring his groin after the effort.

Mehdi Saberi (19.98m) of Iran and Ivan Ivanov (19.87m) of Kazakhstan took home silver and bronze, respectively.

Parul Chaudhary then won her maiden 3,000m steeplechase title in a major international event to take India’s gold tally in the competition to five.

The 28-year-old Chaudhary, who trained in the United States earlier this year, broke off from the pack towards the end and won comfortably in a time of 9 minutes and 38.76 seconds. Her timing was well outside her personal best of 9:29.51s which she had clocked in May in the USA.

Shuangshuang Xu (9:44.54s) of China and Yoshimura Reimi (9:48.48s) of Japan bagged silver and bronze, respectively.

Young long jumper Shaili Singh also clinched her maiden medal — a silver — in her first major international event on yet another productive day for India.

India has so far won nine medals — five gold, one silver and three bronze.

Unstoppable Toor

Toor was the outright favourite to win the shot put gold. He began with a 19.80m effort before covering the winning distance of 20.23m. The 28-year-old Toor became only the third shot putter to defend the Asian Championships title.

Qatar’s Bilal Saad Mubarak had achieved the feat twice by winning consecutive titles in 1995 and 1998, and again in 2002 and 2003. Mohd Gharib Al Zinkawi of Kuwait had won the title thrice in a row — 1979, 1981 and 1983.