Chitra wins first gold for India in women's 400m

Amman, July 27 (UNI) Chitra K Soman gave India its first gold medal by winning women's 400m race on the third day of the ongoing Asian Athletics Championship here today.

Chitra clocked 53.03s ahead of Japanese Asami Tanno (53.20s) and Sri Lankan S. Mgnaka (54.11s) in the final.

The Indian's effort was just a fraction of a second lesser than her season's best of 53.01s which she achieved in the Guwahati leg of Asian Grand Prix last month though much below her personal best of 52.48s.

''I feel good to win my first Asian gold medal. I had put all my efforts and I did not even notice that Japanese Tanno was closing on to me towards the end,'' an elated Chitra said after her gold-winning effort.

With the gold won by Chitra, India's medal tally has swelled to five with one gold, three silver and one bronze.

Earlier yesterday, Sinimole Paulose had won a silver in women's 800m while JJ Shobha and Sushmita Singha Roy added a silver and bronze respectively.

On Wednesday, the first day of the championship, national record holder Preeja Sreedharan had won a silver in women's 10,000m race.

Paulose clocked 2:06.15s behind Truong Thanh Hang of Vietnam (2:04.77s) while another Indian Sushma Devi was fourth with a time of 2:10.63s. Ayako Jinnouchi (2:08.75s) of Japan bagged the bronze.

Paulose's effort was though well below her personal best of 2:02.02s and her season's best mark of 2:04.65s during the National Combined Events and Jumps in Pune last month.

In women's heptathlon, Shobha scored 5356 aggregate points while Sushmita totalled 5154 points. The gold in the seven-event discipline was won by Irina Naumenko of Kazakhstan with 5617 points.

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