Anju Bobby George once again fell short of the World Championship qualifying mark (6.60m) in the third leg of the Asian Grand Prix at Baburao Sanas Ground here on Wednesday.
The Indian long-jumper wins her event but fails to qualify for Osaka World Championships for the second week running
PUNE: Anju Bobby George once again fell short of the World Championship qualifying mark (6.60m) in the third leg of the Asian Grand Prix at Baburao Sanas Ground here on Wednesday.
Even though she won the event — which had four jumpers participating — her winning leap of 6.21 metres was short of her effort in Guwahati by 0.7 metres. And therefore, not enough. But all’s not lost yet.
Anju still has a chance of qualifying for the world championships when she takes part in the national combined events and jump championships starting here from Wednesday, besides the Asian Championship and some events in Europe.
A capacity crown backed Anju everytime she went top of her run-up but the things weren’t going right for her. Though she didn’t foul any of her jumps the more she tried the more she struggled. Anju looked rusty due to the long lay-off after the Doha Asian Games in December - competing in her second event this year - first being Guwahati leg.
“I have many events coming up, majority of them in Europe. I haven’t decided on which event I’ll participate. It’s been looked after Robert and my manager,” said Anju.
Unfortunately for Anju, it started raining just before the beginning of her event and when asked about whether it troubled her or not, Anju said, “Because of the water on track I was not able to get reaction of the surface. But I’m not complaining about it my job is to jump.”
The day started on a good note for India with Joseph Abraham winning the 400 metres hurdles with a time of 49.86. Renjith Maheshwary then continued with his good run of form in this series winning the triple jump with a distance of 16.78.
“I could have done better but the run way was short. So I was not able to get the momentum as a approached the take-off point,” said Maheshwary. Sinimol Poulose completed a hat-trick, by winning 1500 metres, clocking 4:16.56. Chitra Soman stopped the clock at 53.19 seconds to triumph in the 400 metres. Delhi lad, Saurabh Vij heaved the shot put to 18.51 metres to claim the top spot and Surendra Singh won the 800m.
In the 100 metres sprint Susanthika Jayasinghe pipped Guzel Khubbieva of Uzbekistan to win with timing of 11.34 seconds. Khubbieva had managed to beat the Sri Lanka in the pervious two legs.
“The timing would have been better if the venue had a warm-up track. The sprinters have to do lot of acceleration before the race to prepare for the main event,” said Jayasinghe. Among the 11 foreign athletes who were aiming for the tripel crown in the series six managed to do so.
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