The Indian athletics management dropped PT Usha from the relay squad, just as it had in Atlanta Olympics two years ago. There was a good chance for the gold, but the Chinese are always gritty customers in the relays and Kazhakstan had good depth, too.

Yet Jincy Phillip, who took Usha's spot in the team ran a good leg and K Beenamol and Rosa Kutty gave terrific displays as the Indians went into the final leg with a small lead. But Chen Yuxiang of China, wanting to make up for the disappointments of the individual events, where both the 200m and 400m went to Sri Lanka, ransuperbly and overhauled double gold medallist Jyoti Sikdar. With Svetlana Badrankov and S Bodritskaya running two great legs, the Kazhaks looked in control till the end of the second leg but then faded in the third with their weakest link, Svetlana Kazanina falling back a great deal. Not even 400m hurdles champion Natalya Toshina's blistering anchor segment could bring them above the bronze.

China clocked 3:32.03 and India 3:32.02s, almost two seconds better than the effort in Fukuoka in July, when Usha ran the relay. The relay silver was the third medal for Jyoti after the two gold in 800-1,500m.

In the men's 1,600m relay, the Indians shuffled a little and put the doughty and experienced Jata Shankar as the anchor and put Paramjit Singh, bronze medallist in 400m, as the third leg. Lijo David gave India a brilliant start and when P Ramachandran once again put in a sterling show like he did in the semis, India were actually slightly ahead when Paramjit came on. He gave the baton almost level with Japan'sthird runner, Kan Masayoshi. But then Shunji Karube flew past all in the last leg and helped Japan win in 3:01.70s, a new Asian Games record. Japan's first two runners were Jun Osakada and Kenji Tabata.

India timed 3:02.62, which was more than two seconds better than the time of 3:04.86s, which was also a national mark. The Indian record before the Games was 3:04.91s.

In men's javelin, Satvir Singh and Jagdish Bishnoi, two late clearances for the Games were sixth and eight with 75.21m and 72.03m respectively. That was well below their best achieved in Delhi less than three weeks ago. The event was won by Uzbek Sergey Voinov as defending champion and record holder Zhang Lianbo of China seemed to have problem with his throwing arm after two rounds. Lianbo led with 78.58m, but did not throw further as Voinov with a best 79.70m on the fourth try took the gold. Li Rongxiang of China took bronze with 78.57m.