JOIN US Asian Games gold medallist Joseph Abraham’s London Olympics dreams were dashed on Saturday despite winning a gold medal in the men’s 400m hurdles on the first day of the Asian All Star Athletics meet here.
Abraham, also a national record holder, clocked 50.22s to finish first in men’s 400m hurdles but his effort was way below the London Games qualifying ‘B’ standard of 49.80secs.
Dimitriy Koblov (50.64s) and Viktor Leptikov (50.86s) — both from Kazakhstan — were second and third respectively. Another national record holder and Olympics-bound Tintu Luka finished third in the women’s 800m, clocking 2:01.71s.
Apart from Abraham and Tintu, no other Indian won any medal on the day. Another London Games-bound athlete, Sahana Kumari finished fifth in women’s high jump with a below par effort of 1.85m. She had cleared 1.92m in the National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships in Hyderabad last week to make the London bus.
In men’s 400m, India’s P Kunhu Mohammed was disqualified after a foul start while MV Poovamma and K Sowjana were fifth and seventh in women’s 400m with timings of 55.22s and 58.06s respectively.
In women’s triple jump, MA Prajusha could only clear 13.28m to finish fifth while in men’s shot put Jagroop Singh was sixth with an effort of 17.37m.