Asian Games gold medallist Sudha Singh failed to live up to the expectations as India settled with two silver and two bronze medals on a rather disappointing third day of the 20th Asian Athletics Championships on Friday.
Having broken her own national record last month with an Asian leading time, Sudha was tipped to bag the women’s 3000m steeplechase gold but she failed to do so as she was beaten by a long distance by Ruth Chebet of Bahrain, who ran a brilliant race to notch up her personal best of 9:40.84s, in the last event of the day.
Sudha, who has already qualified for next month’s World Championships, could only clock 9:56.27, well below her personal best of 9:45.60 as the seizable crowd at the Shiv Chhatrapati Stadium at Balewadi here were stunned into silence. Sudha was left behind by a big distance by Chebet from around one kilometer mark and the Indian could not recover her lost ground as the Bahraini maintained her tempo till the end.
‘I felt tightness after 1km mark and after that I had to maintain for silver spot. Our event was delayed because the preceding events took more time,’ Sudha said later.Prem Kumar Kumaravel gave India the second silver in long jump while J Hemashree and Samarjeet Singh Malhi bagged a bronze each in women’s 100m hurdles and men’s javelin throw respectively. India’s tally rose to nine medals.