Birmingham, Aug 7 (PTI) Eldhose Paul won a historic triple jump gold in a 1-2 finish for India as the country bagged four medals on a Super Sunday on the concluding day of athletics competitions at the Commonwealth Games here.
After the mad rush of four medals coming within 30 minutes, India’s medal tally from athletics swelled to eight — 1 gold, 4 silver, 3 bronze — the best in the CWG history outside the country and only second to the haul at the 2010 edition in Delhi.
The 25-year-old Paul became only the sixth Indian to win a CWG gold since legendary Milkha Singh won it in 1958 in 440 yards.
The Ernakulam-born Indian Navyman led India’s historic 1-2 finish with a best jump of 17.03m in his third attempt after opening with 14.62m. His jump was though wind-assisted and his second best was 16.63m. Before Sunday’s jump, he had a personal best of 16.99m.
Paul’s Kerala statement Abdulla Aboobacker was second with a fifth round jump of 17.02m. Aboobacker, who has a season’s and personal best of 17.19m, was at fourth spot at the end of the fourth round but soared to 17.02 in his next attempt to jump to second.
Jah-Nhal Perinchief of Bermuda won the bronze with his best jump of 16.92m.
The other Indian in the fray, Praveen Chitravel, who came to the CWG as the second best Indian with a season’s best of 17.18m, finished at fourth with 16.89m.
India has won four triple jump medals in the past editions but this is the first time two athletes from the country have got podium finishes.
Mohinder Singh Gill had won a bronze and a silver in 1970 and 1974 editions while Renjith Maheswary and Arpinder Singh had finished third in 2010 and 2014 editions.
The experienced Annu Rani also scripted history as she became the first Indian female javelin thrower to win a medal, a bronze, with a best effort of 60m in her fourth attempt.
The 29-year-old was well below her season’s best and national record of 63.82m but that was enough for a third-place finish behind two Australians — world champion Kelsey-Lee Barber (64.43m) and Mackenzie Little (64.27m).
Rani’s medal came on a day the country was celebrating National Javelin Day to mark Neeraj Chopra’s historic gold in Tokyo Olympics on the same day last year.
Before Rani, Kashinath Naik and Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra had won a bronze and a gold in the men’s javelin throw respectively.
Naik had won the medal at the 2010 Delhi Games, while Chopra won the gold in Gold Coast in 2018.
The other Indian in the fray, Shilpa Rani was seventh with a best of 54.62m.
Veteran race walker Sandeep Kumar added another bronze in men’s 10,000m event with a personal best time of 38:49.21.
Evan Dunfee (38:36.37) of Canada and Declan Tingay (38:42.33) of Australia won silver and bronze respectively.
The other Indian in the fray, Amit Khatri finished ninth with a season best time of 43:04.97.
Kumar’s medal was the second in this edition after Priyanka Goswami’s silver in the same event on Saturday.
He also became only the second Indian male race walker to win a medal in CWG after Harminder Singh, who won a bronze in 20km event in the 2010 edition.
Kumar also holds national record in both 20km and 50km race walk events. But, he was competing in 10,000m as the 20km event was not there in the Birmingham CWG.
In the last edition in Gold Coast, both the men and women competed in 20km race walk event. But in Birmingham, the organisers decided to have competitions over 10km, and that too on track. PTI PDS PDS ATK ATK
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