PJ Vinod led India’s medal surge with a gold in men’s heptathlon on the final day of the Asian Indoor Games athletics events here on Thursday.

Vinod tallied 5561 points for the top spot, finishing ahead of Kazakhstan’s Pavel Duvitskiy (5432) and Thailand’s Boonkete Chalone (5046).

Apart from Vinod’s gold, India won three silver and four bronze medals to end the athletics programme with three gold, three silver and four bronze.

Sinimol Paulose followed up her gold medal in the 1500M with a silver in the 800M. In a tight finish, Sinimol timed 2:06.32 to claim the second spot in the two-lap race behind China’s Liu King, who clocked 2:06.13. India’s A Vijila took the bronze in 2:06.75.

Preeja Sredharan picked up the silver in the women’s 3000M race, timing 9:27.62, finishing behind China’s Chen Xiaofang (9:23.11) while in the men’s 3000M, Surendra Singh claimed the second spot in 8:04.99. Qatar’s Charles Koech won the gold in 8:04.69. Surendra’s compatriot Sunil Kumar was third in 8:10.07.

R Rajeev won the bronze in the men’s 800M in 1:50.87 while Sajeesh Joseph was fourth in 1:51.41.

Another bronze medal landed in India’s kitty from women’s 4x400 relay, with the quartet of Anu Mariam Jose, A Vijila, Sini Jose and M R Poovamma timing 3:41.09 for the third spot behind Kazakhstan and Thailand. The men’s longer relay team finished fifth.

Dronavalli Harika, the gold medallist in Rapid format, bowed out in the semifinals of the Classical format losing the second game to Chinese-born Qatar player Zhu Chen. Despite the semifinal exit, Harika is assured of a bronze medal.

Harika and Zhu had drawn the first game, but then the Indian lost the second game and failed to make the final.
In the other semifinal, Hou Yi Fan of China beat Siti Zulaikhi Binti Muhmad of Malaysia in the second game to complete a 1.5-0.5 win. Harika's semifinal loss to Zhu Chen was only her second defeat in the tournament. She had won five of her games in rapid and lost one in classical team event.

Silver for Sejwal
Sandeep Sejwal won his second silver medal, finishing second in the men’s 50M breaststroke.

Delhi’s Sandeep timed 28.41 seconds and missed the gold by 0.06 of a second. The gold went to Iran’s Mohammad Ali Rezaei. Vorrawuti Aumpiwan of Thailand took the bronze clocking 28.49s.

The 18-year-old Sejwal had finished second in the 100m breaststroke earlier.

Shikha Tandon finished seventh in the women’s 50M backstroke final, clocking 30.50s. The race was won by Sherry Tsai Hiu Wai of Hong Kong in a new games record of 28.08s.

In men’s 100M butterfly, Rehan Poncha qualified for the final but finished eighth.