Renjit Maheshwary and Sinimol Poulose surged to a golden treble in the third and final leg of the 2007 Asian Grand Prix athletics meeting in Pune on Wednesday, but long jump queen Anju Bobby George failed to attain the qualifying mark for the forthcoming World Championships in Osaka.
Triple jumper Maheshwary, who broke the longest standing national mark by clearing 17.04m in the previous leg at Guwahati, could not repeat that performance but managed to make it three gold medals in a row by recording a best leap of 16.78m.
The 21-year-old athlete, hailing from Kottayam, later blamed the track conditions, especially the short run-ups, for not being able to clear a longer distance.
Maheshwary said he needed at least a 46m run but had to make do with only a 40m one in Pune.
Fellow-Keralite Sinimol, now affiliated to the Tata Academy in Jamshedpur, was also not pleased with her winning time of 4 mins, 16.56 secs in clinching the women's 1,500m.
She blamed it on the cramped schedule of the Grand Prix circuit and the constant travel involved.
The 24-year-old metric miler made it a 1-2 for India with Sushma (4:22.58), who paced her well and enabled her win the race by a huge 35 metres after taking over the lead at the 700m mark.
"My aim is to attain the qualifying mark of 4:10 at the Asian meet in Jordan (in July) for the World Championship," Sinimol declared later.
The day's proceedings, held under overcast conditions and, at times a steady and irritating drizzle at the Sanas Stadium, also handicapped Anju, who could come up with only 6.21m, which was enough to clinch the gold but fell way short of the World Championship qualifying mark of 6.60m.
"I was confident of making the qualifying mark. My rhythm over the last three or four strides was wanting and I could not pick up the necessary speed," she said.
Anju now plans to stay in the city to try and attain the mark at the combined national jumps meet two days later.
There were other successes for the Indian athletes, notably in the form of Joseph Abraham, who took the men's 400m hurdles gold in 49.86 secs in a race that also featured Doha Asiad silver winner Meng Yan of China. Chitra K Soman won the women's 400m in 53.19 secs.
Shot putter Saurabh Vij registered a big upset on way to winning the gold with a best effort of 18.51m, his personal best, but discus thrower Vikas Gowda once again settled for silver behind Iranian strongman Sammi Abbas, who completed a hat-trick of wins in the three-legged circuit.
Abraham's effort needs particular mention. The 25-year-old, working as a sub-inspector with the CRPF in Delhi, trailed Kazakhstan's Yevgeniy Meleshenko till the last hurdle before overtaking his rival to surge to the finish line.
"I took the lead but slowed down around the 200m. I overtook him again before the last hurdle," he said later.
China's Meng Yan dropped out midway through the one-lap event and was thus robbed of his sixth straight title win in the event in Grand Prix meets going back to May 18 last year.
Chitra, the Kottayam-based ONGC Executive Officer, gained her second successive gold in the circuit in a well-run race that saw the winner of the Bangkok leg, Kazakh Olga Tereshkova finish third behind Chitra and her compatriot Marina Maslyonko.
Chitra was later part of the Indian 4 x 400m relay team that finished second behind China (3:32.56) in 3:33.79 seconds.
Vij's effort was also commendable as it stopped the golden surge of Kuwait's Gholum Ahmed.
The Delhi athlete was trailing the Kuwait strongman, winner of the first two legs, till the sixth and final attempt.
Ahmed's last attempt, after fouling his fifth, was a modest 18.00m and he settled for second place behind the Indian youngster.
