Anju squeezes into final at World Athletic Championship

Osaka Aug 27 (UNI) Lady luck smiled on Anju Bobby George who managed to squeeze into finals of the women's long jump event while her other Indian compatriot fell by the wayside at the Word Athletics Championships here today.

Luck deserted discus thrower Krishna Poonia who failed to make it to the medal round.

Anju, the first Indian athlete to win a global medal as she had won a bronze in the 2003 World championships in Paris with 6.70 metres, managed a below par effort of 6.60m in the qualifying round and scraped to the medal round with 11th slot out of the 12 jumpers who got through.

Only seven jumpers managed to beat the 6.75m qualifying mark and along with them next five best performers made it to the finals.

The Chennai based custom officer, Anju's efforts were far below her personal best of 6.83m which set at the 2004 Athens Olympics and had 6.65m as her season's best.

Anju's 6.60m effort came in her first jump and she failed to improve upon this mark in her subsequent jumps. She managed 6.59m in her second attempt and her third attempt was a foul.

Portugal's Naide Gomes and Russian Lyudmila Kolchanova jointly led the field with identical marks of 6.96m each. Brazilian Maurren Higa Maggi's seasons' best effort of 6.95m placed her third in the round.

Krishna Poonia, whose personal best is 61.53m and has season's best of 58.80m, was totally off colour as her best throw in the qualifying round here was poor 57.17m.

The qualifying mark was set at 61.50m. Four of the finalists had qualifying jumps below Krishna's personal best.

Krishna started with a below par effort of 50.52m but sligthly improved to 54.38m in her second. Her best throw of the day- 61.50m- came in her final attempt and that fetched her the dismal 11th place out of 14 throwers in Heat B and 23rd overall in the field of 28.

German Franka Dietzsch (65.17m) led the field followed by Nicoleta Grasu of Romania (64.26m) and Yarelis Barrios of Cuba (63.44m).

Earlier, triple jumper Rajith Maheshwary, discus thrower Vikas Gowda, shot putter Navpreet Singh failed to qualify for the finals in their respective events while hurdler Joseph Abraham despite setting a national record in 400m found himself out of the medal round.

UNI