Olympics 2012: Krishna Poonia qualifies for discus throw final round

India's Krishna Poonia on Friday qualified for the women's discus throw final round in London Olympics with an impressive effort in the qualification round on the first day of track and field events here.

Poonia, who is hoping to win a medal, began with a foul throw but regained her composure to hurl the one-kg discus to 63.54m in the Group A competition at the showpiece Olympic Stadium.

Those who touched the qualification mark of 63.00m or the best 12 make it to the final round.

Poonia finished fifth in Group A behind 2008 Beijing Olympics silver medallist Yarelys Barrios (65.94m) of Cuba, Darya Pishchalnikova (65.02m) of Russia, reigning world champion Li Yanfeng (64.48m) of China and former world champion Dani Samuels (63.97m) of Australia.

Poonia has a personal as well as season's best of 64.76m, also a national record which she set in May at Hawaii in United States.

Commonwealth Games gold medallist Poonia thus became only the sixth Indian to make it to the final round of track and field events in Olympics after Milkha Singh, P T Usha, S Sriram, Gurbachan Singh Randhawa and Anju Bobby George.

The final round will be held tomorrow.