India finally managed a gold medal in the Asian athletics Grand Prix, when their women sprinters finished first in the 4x100 metres relay in the last leg of the meet in Manila, the Philippines, on Sunday.
The Indian quartet bagged the gold with a timing of 47.10 seconds, just ahead of the Phillipines' runners, who finished in 47.90 seconds.
This was India's first top-place finish in any event of the four-leg Grand Prix, the first of which was held in Hyderabad on May 28.
The Indians also impressed in the men's javelin throw, with Jagdish Bishnoi winning a silver, with a distance of 68.35 metres. Sergei Voynov of Uzbekistan won the gold with a superb effort of 77.23 metres.
Anil Kumar came close to winning a gold medal but had to be content with second place after hurling the discus to 58.88 metres. His effort was just 1.14 metres short of gold medal winner Abbas Samini of Iran, who clocked 60.02 metres.
India also won three bronze medals in various men's events, the most impressive being Sanjay Ghosh's performance in the 100 metres.
He came close to staging an upset against more fancied opponents. He clocked 10.48 seconds to finish as the third fastest runner in the meet.
The first two places went to Chernovol Gennady of Kazakhstan (10.31sec) and Sittchai Suwonprateep of Thailand (10.39).
Maha Singh won a brone medal in the long jump with a leap of 7.52 metres while the Indian men's relay team finished third in the 4x100 metres.
Besides the relay quartet, Soma Biswas was the lone Indian to bag a medal in the women's track events, which was dominated by star Sri Lankan sprinters Sushantika Jayasinghe and Damayanti Darsha.
Soma won a bronze medal in the 100 metres hurdles with a timing of 14.15 seconds, finishing behind Tricia Roberts of Thailand and Sriyani Kulawansa of Sri Lanka.
In the 100 metres sprint, Jayasinghe claimed the gold medal with a timing of 11.32 seconds while in the 400 metres Darsha took the first place at 52.12.
