Golden Girls score in India’s best Asiad

For the relay quartet,Guangzhou was all about guarding a legacy that India has made its own since Busan 2002. Manjeet Kaur has been part of all three efforts,including Doha four years ago,and has moved from a wide-eyed rookie in her first outing at Busan to anchoring the quartet at Doha to leading the first leg here when the Indians asserted their class against the Kazakh runners with a timing of 3:29.02.

“It’s great to be winning the third gold in my third Asian Games. It proves I’ve maintained my standards over a long time. India always has strong teams,and we run to a very good plan,” said the opening leg runner,who led an unchanged team here from the Commonwealth Games last month.

The tall 400 m specialist trailed Kazakh Marina Maslyonko,but watched with satisfaction as Sini Jose caught up with the Kazakhs midway through her leg,and earned India the lead. Gold-winning hurdler Ashwini Akkunji then put her long strides to work,setting up a great base for anchor Mandeep Kaur to put it beyond Olga Tereshkova.

Tereshkova had snatched the gold from the Indians in the 400 m flat on the first day of athletics at the Aoti Stadium — beating the two Punjab girls still recovering from mild bouts of fever — and Mandeep had been awaiting her turn for a shot at revenge.

“I had decided I won’t let anyone go past me in the last 50 metres. It’s a very different feeling in a relay,and you don’t want to let your team down. I didn’t find it difficult to go up a gear,” Mandeep said.

Ashwini Akkunji had helped increase the lead by a stride or two,but India’s star of the day was Asiad debutante Sini Jose,who set her own pace: a fast first 100 m and a faster last 50. “There was little tension because the Kazakh wasn’t letting up,but I ran to the plan,” she said.