Maheshwary, Paulose in 3rd leg of Asian Athletic GP meet

Pune, June 25 (UNI) Ranjith Maheshwary, Sinimol Paulose of India and Susanthika Jayasinghe of Sri Lanka, who seem to be in fine mettle, are expected to dominate the third and final leg of the US 50,000 dollar Asian Athletic Grand Prix meeting to be flagged off at the Baburao Sanas sports complex here on June 27.

Indian ace long jumper Anju Bobby George, however, is expected to better her previous mark of 6.65 meter in a bid to book her berth for the World Athletics championship which is slated to be held at Osaka in Japan from July 25 to August 2.

Making her appearance after Doha Asian Games, Anju treated the second leg of the Asian GP at Guwahati merely a testing ground to boost her confidence. Nonetheless she went on to claim the gold with a leap of 6.28 meters.

The onset of monsoon may pose some problems to the prestigious meet.

Organising secretary of the meet Pralhad Sawant, who is also the joint secretary of the Athletic Federation of India, however, sounded optimistic that the rain fury will be subsided before the curtain goes up.

''We have taken adequate precautions to see the meet through as record number of 230 sportspersons from 20 Asian nations will vye for honour with special eye on the Osaka world championship,'' he said.

Maheshwary, who won the gold at Bangkok by clearing 16.68 meters, went on to better his performance by clearing the 17 meter barrier at Guwahati and rightly set his sight to compelete a hat-trick at Pune.

Likewise, Paulose, who dominated the women's 1,500 meters race both at Banglok and Guwahati, has also lined herself for a triple.

Thirty-one-year-old Srilankan Sushantika has also set her sight on the Osaka meet, after her brilliant effort at Bangkok and Guwahati.

She pushed the winner of women's 100 meters sprint Guzel Khubbieva of Uzbekistan hard.

UNI