Asian Games: Lakshmanan stripped off historic 10,000m bronze medal

Jakarta: Hima Das, Dutee Chand  (women’s 400m, 100m) and  Muhammed Anas  (400m)  won silver  each,  but their celebrations were tempered after G Lakshmanan was disqualified after finishing third in 10,000m in the  Athletics competition of the  Asian Games here.

Lakshmanan finished third with a time of 29:44.91. But he was later disqualified. It later emerged that the reason for his disqualification was that he had stepped out of the track during one of the laps.

Hima won silver, setting a new national record with a timing of 50.79 seconds. Pre-race favourite Salwa Naser of Bahrain clinched gold with a new Games record timing of 50.09, while Nirmala Sheoran narrowly missed out on a bronze, clocking 52.96.

Dutee Chand,  making her debut in  Asian Games, clocked  11.32 second race two finish second in 100m.

Muhammed Anas also won silver in the men’s 400m with a timing of 45.69. Anas finished behind Qatar’s Abdalelah Hassan, who clocked 44.89, while the other Indian in the fray, Arokia Rajiv, missed bronze, finishing fourth with a timing of 45.84.

Dutee won silver in a photo-finish in the women’s 100m, with a timing of 11.32, just 0.02 seconds behind winner Edidiong Odiong.

Meanwhile, Govindan Lakshmanan, who finished third with a timing of 29:44.91 in men’s 10,000m, was disqualified and missed out on bronze.

In heats, Hima timed 51.00, to eraset Manjit Kaur’s 14-year old national record (51.05) set in Chennai.

Only Salwa Naser, who topped the heats with a Games record timing of 50.86, had a better personal best of 49.08 to Hima’s 51.13.

“I don’t know how fast I can go. I don’t think about how fast I need to go. When a runner runs, they don’t think who is close or who is ahead or behind. We are just running,” Hima said.

Only last month, Hima (18), become the first Indian track athlete to win a gold medal with a timing of 51.46 at the Under-20 World Athletics Championships.

Anas came into the final having topped the list of qualifiers with a timing of 45.63 ahead of Qatari Mohamed Abbas, who finished in 45.81 seconds.

“My aim was to get a medal, the colour of the medal doesn’t matter. I am happy I got a silver. There were some issues at the start of the season. I wanted to train with my personal coach PV Jayakumar, but they asked me to attend the Indian camp. Anyway, I am happy I could end the season in a better way,” Anas said after the race.

Dutee, who finished third in her semi-final, was slow off the starting blocks and was fifth at the half-way mark, but picked up pace to close in on Edidiong Odiong of Bahrain, who set a mark of 11.30 seconds to win the gold.

Yongli Wei of China was just a shade slower than Dutee and was only 0.01 seconds behind than the Indian sprinter, culminating in a photo-finish.

For Dutee, it will be a bittersweet medal four years after she was supposed to take her Asian Games bow in Incheon. Diagnosed with hyper-androgenism, the International association of Athletics Federation’s rules at the time had denied her a chance to run in the Asiad.

‘‘I am feeling great. I was hoping for the gold, but still I am happy to have proved myself and earned a silver for the country,’’ Dutee said. (UNI)