Chitra K Soman gave India their first gold medal at the 17th Asian Athletics Championships, winning the women’s 400M on the third day here on Saturday while Anju George narrowly failed to book a World Championships berth in long jump.
Chitra clocked 53.03s to finish ahead of Japanese Asami Tanno (53.20s)  and Sri Lankan S Menaka (54.11s) in the final. The Indian’s effort was just a fraction off her season’s best of 53.01s which she timed at the Guwahati leg of the Asian Grand Prix last month. Her personal best is 52.48 seconds.
‘’I feel good to win my first Asian gold medal. It was very windy in the early part of the race. I had put all my efforts and I did not even notice that the Japanese girl was closing in on me towards the end,’’ an elated Chitra said after her gold-winning effort.
Meanwhile, Anju won the long jump silver, leaping to 6.65M. She missed the gold by just one centimetre, with Kazakhstan’s Olga Rypakova taking the gold with her final round leap of 6.66M. Interestingly, Anju had pushed Olga to the bronze medal position at the Asian Games in Doha, claiming the silver with her very last jump.
Anju’s effort was better than the World Championship qualifying mark of 6.60 metres but the wind guage showed 4.1 metres per second, above the legal limit of 2.0m/s, dashing the Indian’s hopes. Anju’s her next best effort was 6.57 metres, just three centimetres short of the Osaka mark.
On Friday, J J Shobha tallied 5356 points to win the silver in the heptathlon while Sushmita Singha Roy totalled  5154 points for the bronze. The gold in the seven-event discipline was won by Irina Naumenko of Kazakhstan with 5617 points. Joseph Abraham and Kuldev Singh qualified for men’s 400M hurdles final after finishing second and fourth in their respective heats. Joseph clocked 50.91s to finish second in heat two while Kuldev timed 51.92s to finish fourth in heat one.