India win women 4×400metres gold in Asian Games

Guanzghou, Nov 26 (IBNS) Indian women ’s 4×400m relay defended the gold medal won in 2006 with Ashwini Chidananda leading the team to the gold medal in the Asian Games here on Friday. Ashwini, who won the 400m hurdles gold, ran in the third leg and gave the Indian team a huge lead over second-placed Kazakhstan. In the last leg Mandeep Kaur maintained the lead to win the gold in 3min 29.02sec. In the first leg, India’s Manjeet Kaur was running second before Sini Jose gave a slender lead for Ashwini to take over. Kazakhstan took the silver in 3:30.03 while China claimed the bronze in 3:30.89. The quartet had won the title in the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, though today ’s effort was well below 3:27.77 in the CWG. In 2006 Asian Games, Satti Geetha, Pinki Parmanik, Chitra K Soman and Manjeet Kaur had won the gold in 3:32.95. Preeja Sreedharan and Kavita Raut clocked their personal bests to clinch the silver and bronze respectively in the women ’s 5000m final. Sreedharan, who earlier clinched the 10,000m gold, returned a timing of 15:15.89. Raut, who bagged silver in 10,000m, could not get past Sreedharan yet again but managed a personal best of 15:16.54 to win the bronze. Bahrain’s Mimi Belete Gebgregeiorges clinched the gold medal with a timing of 15:15.59, which was incidentally her personal best as well.

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