Vikas Gowda sails into final

Sahana advances; Mayookha slips

Vikas Gowda and Sahana Kumari entered the final of their respective events in contrasting ways at the Commonwealth Games athletics on Wednesday.

Vikas looked supremely confident as he sealed the final spot with his very first throw in the qualifying round, reaching 64.32 metres, well past the automatic qualifying mark of 63.00 metres.

The US-based Indian has a season’s best of 65.62M. He also holds the national record of 66.28M and had won a silver at the last CWG in New Delhi. Only two other throwers went past 63 metres -- South Africa’s Victor Hogan (64.16) and Jason Morgan (63.82) of Jamaica. Vikas’ main challenger, Australian Ben Harradine, competing in the other group, made it with a 61.06M throw.

Australia’s Julian Wruck, another fancied thrower, barely made it with a 59.02M throw.Sahana also just squeezed into the final, taking the 12th spot after clearing 1.81 metres.

Tintu Luka made it to the women’s 800M semifinals after finishing fourth in her heat with a timing of 2:02.74. She made it through as the fastest loser. Luka, who has a season’s best of 2:00.56, was sixth best overall across four heats. After running a fast opening lap, Tintu struggled along and was overtaken by other runners before she put in an all out effort to finish fourth.

In the women’s long jump, Mayookha Johy crashed out after a shocking performance. She could only come up with a best jump of 6.11M that put her in 19th spot overall. After that first jump, her subsequent efforts were 6.00M and 5.89M). Mayookha had a season’s best of 6.56 metres.