India bag 4 medals, including a gold, in Youth Oly Qualifiers

Ajay Kumar Saroj won the boys' 1,500m race to help India bag four medals on the first day of the 2014 Youth Olympics Asian Area Qualification event here today.

Saroj clocked 3:56.47 to win the gold and seal a berth for the Youth Olympic Games to be held in Nanjing, China from August 16-28.

Korean Lee Sangmin (4:00.03) and Saudi Arabia's Kaabi Ali Mohammed (4:04.47) finished second and third respectively.

Two other Indians won a silver each while another bagged a bronze medal.
Maymon Poulose finished second in boys' 110m hurdles with a new national youth record of 13.80 secs.

Japanese Kanai Nao won the event in 13.77s while local lad Munaek Parinya was third at 13.84s.

In the boy's javelin throw, Indian youth champion Neeraj Chopra improved upon his personal best to 70.54m to win a silver. China's 16-year-old Xiang Jiabo improved his world youth leading performance to 78.69m as he took the top spot. South Korea's Kim Woo Jung finished third with 66.43m.

India bagged a bronze in girls' javelin throw also through Pushpa Jakhar. She hurled the spear to 48.73m. Ge Lijuan of China (49.91m) and Warwara Nazarova (Kazakhstan, 49.33m) were first and second respectively.

High jumper Libia Shaji finished fifth on count-back after she was initially shown as bronze winner.

The organisers corrected the mistake later and placed her at fifth spot. Four girls, including Shaji, had cleared 1.64m and the Indian had to finally settle for a fifth place on count-back.

In other events, S Mithravarun finished fourth with 54.20m in boys' discus throw, Rochelle Macfarlane finished seventh in girls' triple jump (12.39m), Harbaksh Singh (6:34.88) was seventh in boys' 2000m steeplechase.

Shot putter Nishan Singh (16.24m) and long jumper Sahil Mahabali (6.99m) finished fifth in their respective events while Naveen finished seventh (50:45.35) in boys' 10,000m race walk.