It's raining medals for India as Toor, Sable shine

Hangzhou: India's champion sportsmen and sportswomen came of age on Sunday at the Asian Games with Avinash Sable becoming the first Indian man to win the 3000m steeplechase gold at Asian Games while shotputter Tajinderpal Singh Toor pulled off a big final round throw to defend his title on a medal-ladenn day which fetched nine podium finishes.

India's total medal tally now stands at 53. India in fact won 15 medals across sports on the day, their biggest haul in a single day of the Games over all editions and athletics was the biggest contributor in that.

India picked up 2 gold, 4 silver and 3 bronze on the day which was marred by controversy in the women's 100m hurdles final.

Jyothi Yarraji, along with Chinese runner Wu Yanni, was disqualified for false start but the judges later allowed the race to be run. Lin Yuwei of China won the race with a time of 12.74 seconds while Yanni (12.91) and Yarraji (13.04) were second and third respectively. But the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) immediately filed a protest and within minutes, Yanni was disqualified under Technical Rule 16.8.

Yarraji's bronze was upgraded to silver. According to Technical Rule 16.8, any athlete responsible for a false start shall be disqualified by the starter.

But, a note to the rule says "when one or more athletes make a false start, others are inclined to follow and ... any athlete who does so has also made a false start.

The starter should warn or disqualify only such athlete or athletes who, in their opinion, were responsible for the false start." AFI senior vice president and legendary long jumper Anju Bobby George termed it as an "unbelievable drama" rarely seen in a major competition.

AFI president and World Athletics Vice President and Executive Board member Adille Sumariwalla said the matter would be taken up at the higher level "so that these kinds of things do not happen in future".

'Toor' de force

Before the controversy struck, Toor made a remarkable comeback after opening with two foul throws and trailing at third at the end of the third round.

He jumped to second with his 20.06m fourth round throw but had a foul throw next to be on the verge of losing the gold to Saudi Arabia's Mohamed Daouda Tolo. But, the Asian record holder Toor saved the best for the last as hurled the iron ball to 20.36m to nail the gold.

Toor thus became the fourth Indian shot putter to defend Asian Games gold after Parduman Singh Brar (1954 and 1958), Joginder Singh (1966 and 1970) and Bahadur Singh Chouhan (1978 and 1982). (PTI)