Indian athletes win 11 of 12 gold

India ruled the roost on track and field by winning 11 gold medals out of 12 on offer with javelin thrower Suman Devi coming up with the best show on the third and penultimate day of athletics competition in the 12th South Asian Games here on Thursday.

Suman Devi (women’s javelin), Renjith Maheswary (men’s triple jump), Om Prakash Karhana (men’s shot put), P U Chitra (women’s 1500m), Ajoy Kumar Saroj (men’s 1500m), Jauna Murmu (women’s 400m hurdles), Dharun Ayyasamy (men’s 400m hurdles), L Surya (women’s 10,000m), Srabani Nanda (women’s 200m) and men’s and women’s 4x400 relay teams won gold for India in a show of overwhelming dominance under overcast and cold conditions at the Indira Gandhi Athletics Stadium here.

India also won seven silver and one bronze. Sri Lanka were left with just one gold medal with Suranjaya de Silva finishing first in men’s 200m race.

India have so far won 26 gold, 22 silver and eight bronze in three days and just two events of men’s and women’s marathon -- to be held on Friday morning -- are left in the athletics competition.

The best performance of the day came from Suman, who won the women’s javelin event and her effort of 59.45m was a mere eight centimetre outside Annu Rani’s national record of 59.53m.

Rani, who also competed on Thursday, had to settle for the silver with an effort of 57.13m. She had set the national record while winning a bronze in the 2014 Asian Games in Guangzhou.

In women’s 10,000m, L Surya ran an impressive race as she clocked 32:39.86 to win the gold, ahead of team-mate Swaty Gadhave (33:57.09) and S Hewage (36:11.39) of Sri Lanka.

In triple jump, former Asian champion Renjith Maheswary improved the Games Record to 16.45m while winning the gold.