India's men's 4x400m relay team, comprising Mohd Anas, Amoj Jacob, Mohd Ajmal and Rajesh Ramesh, lived up to the favourites' tag, being the Asian record holders, as they dethroned Qatar to grab the gold on the penultimate day of athletics competition at the Olympic Stadium here on Wednesday.
Team India clocked 3:01.58s, though slower than their Worlds' time, to leave Qatar (3:02.05) and Sri Lanka (3:02.55) with the silver and bronze medals respectively.
Though Mohd Anas clocked the best time of 43.60s of the Indian quartet, India were trailing in fifth place when he handed over the baton to Jacob. But the Delhi athlete pulled his team ahead with a best second leg time of 47.01s that set the tone for the last two legs. Ajmal continued Amoj's good work as he kept India in the lead till he handed over the baton to Rajesh Ramesh. Ajmal clocked 45.61s as he withstood a strong challenge from Qatar's Ismail Abakar who timed 45.23 and was closing in fast.
At 45.36s, Rajesh was only the third fastest among the final lap runners, but such was India's lead that Bassem Hemeida's 45.06s was just not enough to pip India at the finish. Äsked about India trailing after the first lap, Jacob said: "We were confident as we had the Asian record but we were not over confident," Jacob said.
Silver for relay girls, Sable, Harmilan
Earlier, the women's 4x400m relay squad comprising Vithya Ramraj, Aishwarya K Mishra, Prachi and Subha Venkatesan settled for the silver after clocking an impressive time of 3:27.85s. Vithya gave her team a fine start, clocking 48.86 seconds in the first leg Aishwarya failed to build on it as she clocked 55.27s, the slowest among the four. After Prachi ran a 52.45 in the third leg, Subha went all out chasing the gold. She clocked 51.27s, the second best leg time, but that was not enough to overtake Bahrain who won in 3:27.65s. Sri Lanka won bronze in 3:30.88s.
Avinash Sable, fresh from his dominating show in men's 3000m steeplechase, was back on the track in men's 5000m but settled for the silver behind Birhanu Balew who won in a Games record time of 13:17.40s. Sable clocked 13:21.09 while DF Admasu, also of Bahrain, took bronze in 13:25.63s. "I have to admit that he was better. But my target is to bag a golden double at the next Asian Games," Sable said.
Adding another silver to India's tally was flamboyant middle distance runner Harmilan Bains. After emulating her mother Madhuri Singh by winning the 1500m silver, Harmilan went a rung ahead in the Hall of Fame as she made it a silver double adding the 800m also to her prized collection. The 25-year-old couldn't catch Sri Lanka's MT Dissanayaka, who won in 2:03.20, despite a fine kick at the end. Harmilan took the second place in 2:03.75 followed by China's Chunyu Wang in 2:03.90s.
"I came to remember my army discipline. This season, my performance was not that good but I have been given full support by the government, so I wanted to end with my best effort," said Sable after winning the silver in 5000m race.
