Guangzhou: India ended their athletics campaign in the Asian Games with a bagful of medals with the women's 4x400m relay quartet winning the gold to bring down curtains with a bang on the penultimate day of the competitions here on Friday.
India emerged from the track and field events with five gold, two silver and four bronze medals, one of their best efforts in Asian Games history, though below their performance in 2002 Busan Asian Games where they had a 7-6-5 medal haul.
Having started their campaign with a golden double in the women's 10,000m and 3,000m steeplechase through Preeja Sreedharan and Sudha Singh on the first day, the 4x400m relay team of Manjeet Kaur, Sini Jose, AC Ashwini and Mandeep Kaur ended the campaign by clinching the gold in 3 minutes, 29.02 secs at the Aoti Main Stadium.
Mandeep staved off a determined challenge from Kazakhstan's last runner Olga Tereshkova, the individual 400m gold medalist, to finish strongly after her teammates Sini and Ashwini, the 400m hurdles gold medalist, had given India a sizeable lead from the second stage of the race.
Kazakhstan, with two 40m individual medalists running for them, were edged out to the second spot despite clocking a national best time of 3:30.03 while hosts China took the bronze in 3:30.89.
"We knew we could expect a strong challenge from Kazakhstan. I and Sini Jose were under pressure to increase the lead after the first lap (by Manjeet). I am extremely happy we did it. And this is my first Asian Games and back home in my village in Kundapur taluk (Karnataka) everyone is bursting crackers and distributing sweets. It feels like a miracle," said Ashwini, the double gold medalist.
Experienced one-lapper Manjeet Kaur said that she could not practice for the last 15 days because of chest congestion.
"But for missing my practice I would have won the 400m gold too," she said, adding "today all of us wanted to win gold for India."
It was the fifth gold from the athletics arena for India following gold medals by Ashwini in the 400m hurdles and by Joseph Abraham in the corresponding men's event and the opening day's heroics by Preeja and Sudha.
Preeja, however, could only get a silver despite making a great effort to catch Bahrain's eventual gold winner Mimi Belete in the women's 5000m while compatriot Kavita Raut got the bronze as India won one gold, a silver and a bronze from the last day action for the country.
No Indian is competing in the men's and women's marathon, the last athletics event to be held on Saturday.
Preeja who led a 1-2 of Indians with Kavita in the women's 10,000m on day one, was in the lead bunch of six runners led by Japan's Kayoko Furushi, silver medalist in 2006 Doha Games, along with her teammate as the two kept up the challenge with easy strides.
Defending champion Xue Fei, also the continental champion, was left behind with two laps left as the two Indians, Furoshi and the Bahraini duo Mimi and Kareema Saleh Jasim made their move.
The pace picked up in the final lap but the Indians kept pace but were also boxed in by the other three when Mimi made the kick just before the final bend. Preeja was a bit late in taking up the challenge and then made an excellent effort to catch up with the leader, reduced the 10m gap down to two when the Bahraini crossed the line to take gold in 15:15.59.
Preeja, who clocked a personal best of 15 minutes 15.89 seconds, improving on her previous mark of 15:45.61, conceded she made her move a bit too late.
"Had I made my move to step up the pace immediately after she (Bahraini winner) made her move, I could have caught up with her and perhaps won the gold. But it was not to be, but I am not disappointed as I have finished second," she said.
28-year-old Preeja said she was a bit nervous before the race but her coach Nikolai Snesarov kept telling her she could do it. "He kept telling me I can do it," said the railways runner from Idukki district in Kerala.
Kavita Raut, the women's 10,000m silver medal winner here, was relegated to the third position despite also clocking a personal best of 15:46.54, a improvement over 15:48.19 achieved in Ranchi earlier this year.
Bahrain's Kareema finished fourth while 2006 champion and runner-up Xue Fei and Fukushi ended up a disappointing 7th and 5th respectively.
Renjith Maheswary, bronze winner in the Commonwealth Games, looked headed for the gold in men's triple jump when he took the lead with his fourth attempt of 16.74m.
But his dream got shattered first by Kazakh Evginiy Ektov's 16.86m in reply to the Indian's 16.71m in the final try, before Chinese defending champion Li Yanxi uncorked a winning leap of 16.94, incidentally his season's best, in his fifth and last attempt to take care of the gold.
Had Maheswary come anywhere near his CWG effort of 17.07m, he would have easily won the gold, but under pressure and in his final leap the Kerala jumper faltered to finish in fourth place as another Chinese Asian junior champion Cao Shuo also leaped past him with a 16.84m effort in the final attempt to grab the bronze.
India's second entrant, Amarjit Singh, ended up a poor 7th with a best try of 16.15m from 16 starters.
The Indian men's 4x100m relay squad narrowly missed the bronze medal after a great anchor leg by Mohamed Abdul Najeeb who started in fifth position when the baton was passed to him by third runner Shameer Naseem Mon and nearly edged out the last runner of Thailand, Sittichai Sowonprateep. The other Indian runners were M Rahamatulla and Suresh Sathya.
The Indian anchor dipped a shade too early and the team finished fourth in 39.10. Thailand clocked 39.09 to win bronze behind China and Chinese Taipei who won gold and silver in 38.78secs, a Chinese national best, and 39.05.
The women's sprint relay quartet of Satti Geetha, Srabani Nanda, P K Priya and H M Jyothi set a new national record by clocking 45.23seconds, clipping 2/100ths of a second from the old mark, but it still was not enough to get them a medal and the team finished fifth.
The gold was won by Thailand in 44.09, silver went to China (44.22) and Japan took the bronze clocking 44.41.
In women's high jump, India's Sahana Kumari finished tied in seventh position from eight finalists with a season best of 1.84m.
The gold went to Svetlana Radzivil with a jump of 1.95m, the Uzbekistan athlete's personal best, while her compatriot Nadiya Dusanova and Kazakh Anna Ustinova grabbed silver and bronze with best attempts of 1.93m and 1.90m respectively.
In the men's 10,000m final, India's Suresh Kumar -- 11th finisher in CWG -- was beaten to the 8th place despite dipping under 19 minutes and clocking a career-best 28 minutes 59.98 secs. The 19-year-old's earlier best was 29:33.40.
The grueling race in cool conditions was won by Ethiopia-born Bahrain runner Bilisuma Gelassa with a personal best of 27:32.72 while Qatar's Kenyan-born 2006 Games silver medalist Rashed Essa Ismail chased the winner till the end and clocked 27:33.09. The bronze went to Bahrain's Mahboob Ali Hasan, also a former Kenyan known as Silas Kurui, who crossed the finish line in 27:40.07.
The men's 4x400 relay squad, however, disappointed to finish fourth in 3:06.49 behind Saudi Arabia, who won the gold in 3:02.30, a national record, Japan and China. The quartet comprised P Kunhu Mohammed, Bibin Mathew, P Jayakumar and Mortaja Sheikh.
In men's javelin, India's Rajender Singh and Kashinath Naik, medalist in CWG, finished outside the medal bracket with 74.31m and 73.96m, well short of the gold winning feat of 83.15 by Japan's Yukifumi Murakami, the thrower's career-best effort. Silver and bronze were claimed by Jaem Young Park of Korea and Rinat Tarzumanov of Uzbekistan with 79.92 and 79.65m
India's Asian champion shot putter Om Prakash failed to justify his billing and ended up without a medal, in fourth position, with 19.17m in his fourth attempt He fouled his fifth and sixth tries.
Another Indian Saurabh Vij finished sixth with 18.98m which came in his fourth try.
The gold was won by Saudi Arabia's Sultan Al Habashi (20.57, season?s best), while the silver and bronze medals were claimed by China's Zhang Jun (19.59) and Chinese Taipei's Chang Ming Huang (19.48).
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