District Poonch TT Championship
Afshan claims Jr girls title

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

POONCH, Oct 13: Afshan claimed the junior girls winners trophy beating Gessu Jamwal in the final of the ongoing District Jammu Table Tennis Championship organised by the District Table Tennis Association at Degree College, here today.

In this close fight for the title clash, Afshan managed a 3-1 victory in the best of five sets reading score 11-6, 7-11, 11-9, 11-8.

In the semi-finals, Afshan defeated Sonia in straight sets 11-9, 11-9, 11-6, whileas Gessu beat fighting Aarti 3-1 (9-11, 12-10, 12-10, 11-6).

Earlier, in the quarter-finals, Afshan beat Gaganpreet 11-6, 11-9, 11-8; Sonia beat Monika 9-11, 11-6, 11-7, 11-9; Gessu Jamwal beat Rupali Jamwal 8-11, 11-6, 11-6, 11-4 and Aarti beat Sonika 11-6, 11-6, 11-4.

Meanwhile, in the Men’s doubles first round played today, the pair of Salil Raina and Sandeep Luthra beat Javed Iqbal and Kuljeet Singh 11-4, 11-6, 11-3. Sohail Bandey and Aasif Bhandey beat Harmantal and J P Singh 12-10, 11-9, 11-9; Manmeet and Baljeet beat Panky and Samandeep 11-6, 11-4, 11-8; Narinder Singh and Varun Bhalla beat Vijay and Rizwin 11-9, 11-9, 11-6; Nadeem and Aditya beat Pankaj and Sumanth 11-9, 11-6, 11-6; Navjot and Gaganpreet beat A S Jeet and Gurpreet 9-11, 11-7, 11-7, 12-10; Salim Bandey and Jagjeet Singh beat Manmohan Suri and Vinod Sharma 11-6, 11-4, 12-10 and Prof Jasbir Singh and Sumesh Raina beat Iraz and Mohit 11-4, 11-6, 11-6.

GHSS Kathua wins Kabaddi final in women sports

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Oct 13: Government Girls Higher Secondary School (GGHSS), Kathua defeated Cosmic Heart 23-10 in Kabaddi final in the rural and women sports meet organised by the State Sports Council at Mini-Stadium, Kathua.

Whereas, in the Handball final, GGHSS, Kathua lost to Stadium XI 1-5. The Kho-Kho title went to Little Angles School girls after they defeated Cosmic Heart 12-6. Teams which participated in these competitions were Stadium XI, Cosmic Heart Higher Secondary School, Little Angle HSS, Govt. Girls HSS and Navdev Academy, Rainbow High School, Kathua and Degree College.

Athletic results: 100 mts - Shyambhavi Khullar, Little Angles School, Ist; Kuljeet Kour, GGHSS, 2nd and Nitika Mahajan, Little Angles, third. 200 mts: Komal Jasrotia, Little Angles, Ist; Ritika Andotra, Cosmic Heart, 2nd and Neha Pathania, Little Angles, third. 400 mts: Seema Chowhan, Cosmic Heart, Ist; Raghuma Gupta and Radhika Gupta of Little Angles shared second and third positions respectively. 800 mts: Jagriti, Rainbow School, Ist; Neha Sharma, Cosmic Heart, 2nd and Nitasha Sharma, Cosmic Heart, third.

Shot-Put: Pooja Sharma, GGHSS, Ist; Shavi Singh, Cosmic Heart, 2nd and Nidhi Sharma, Degree College, third.

Long Jump: Avneet Kour of GGHSS, Ist; Ritika Andotra of Cosmic Heart, 2nd and Kuljeet Kour of GGHSS, third.

All these competitions held under the supervision of incharge Sports Stadium, Kathua, Rajan Sharma.

Sunita fails drug test as athletes add 4 more medals

BUSAN, Oct 13: India’s best-ever showing in Asiad athletics was eclipsed by the news of Sunita Rani testing "positive for doping," which took the sheen off today’s performance, in which athletes bagged a gold, two sivers and a bronze on the penultimate day of the 14th Asian Games here.

India’s reputation at the games took a severe beating as middle distance runner Sunita runs the risk of being stripped of a 1,500m gold and a 5,000m bronze medal after the Asian Games Organising Committee (BAGOC) announced that she had tested positive for the banned substance nandrolone.

BAGOC chief Son Taek Chung confirmed the news at a crowded media gathering this afternoon.

The "positive" test comes as a huge embarassment for the second major games in succession after India’s was stripped off two golds at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in August.

The 22 year old Sunita had staged a comeback after a two-year injury lay-off, to win the 1,500m gold and a bronze in the 5,000m with timings of 4:06:03 and 15:18:77 respectively.

India won a gold, two silvers and a bronze in athletics bettering their last Asiad performance, with 36 medals and moved upto the sixth place in the medals table.

India now have 11 golds, 12 silvers and 13 bronze medals and have managed to cross the total of 35 medals won by them in the last Asian Games in Bangkok in 1998.

Today’s results placed India at the sixth position ahead of Uzbekistan, who have ten golds in their kitty and behind Thailand’s 12 golds.

Athletics alone have contributed 17 medals — seven golds, six silvers and four bronze medals — one of the best hauls for the country in recent times.

If the test is finally confirmed as positive, not only will both medals be taken away, but Sunita will also be banned for two years. But that will happen only after the Sample B test confirm the preliminary result. The Indian Chef-de-Mission Jagadish Tytler has already made clear his intention to go in for a second test.

The sample b has to be tested before october 25 as under the rules, the second test has to be conducted within two weeks of the first, which was conducted on Friday. Amateur Athletics Federation of India (AAFI) secretary general, Lalit Bhanot vehemently denied the news and said, "I have no such information from anybody on medical commission or the organising committee. As far as I am concerned it is a mere rumour till I get any official news."

"They are all mere rumours," he had said but there was sense of uneasiness in Indian camp and among the officials. Thus, India’s best-ever showing in athletics at an Asian Games lay in tatters after BAGOC announcement.

Earlier, champion runner K M Beenamol anchored the 4x400m relay for a gold — India’s 11th and last — to become country’s most celebrated athlete with two golds and a silver in her kitty.

The Indian women’s 4x400m relay won a gold after a gap of 16 years. The last time was also in Seoul, South Korea, when P T Usha anchored the team, besides which she had won three other gold medals.

Jincy Phillips, fifth in the individual 400m, set the tone with a blistering opening leg but Manjeet Kaur running the second leg gave the contingent some jitters, as she ran a rather weak leg.

But Soma Biswas, silver medallist in the heptathlon, ran a wonderful third and gave beenamol a handy five metre lead, which the Kerala girl extended to about eight metres and cruised through the tape in 3:30.84. Kazkhastan was second in 3:31.72 and China was third in 3:32.43s.

The Indian athletes also picked two silver medals — in the men’s 4x400m relay and in women’s high jump — and a bronze in men’s discus event. Bobby aloysius took the other silver in high jump while Anil Kumar managed a bronze in discus.

The men’s 4x400m relay team came in a fine silver, as P Ramachandran started the race for India. Manoj Lal, Satbir Singh and Bhupendra ran the susbequent legs and kept a fast approaching Sri Lankan team from snatching away the silver.

The Indians clocked 3:04:22, while Saudi Arabia won in 3:02:47. Sri Lanka was third with 3:04:37s.

Bobby Aloysius for a brief moment must have seen the gold dangling in front of her eyes, as her main rival, Tatiana Effimenko struggled at 1.88m, which the Indian girl had cleared on first attempt.

Effimenko just about cleared the height on her third and final attempt. But at 1.90m she sailed over on first try, as bobby failed three times. Effimenko then had a shot at the games record but failed at 1.95m, belonging to Sato Megumi of Japan.

That saw bobby, who was fourth in the Commonwealth Games, get silver, but the 28-year-old from Kerala was clearly disappointed. "I was confident of getting a gold, the way I was jumping," she said.

She was distracted by the constant playing of the band near the high jump pit. But as her husband, Shajan, said, "the silver is still a fine performance."

Anil Kumar returned with a bronze, but it must have been a disappointing one for him, since he had come with dreams of a gold. In fact his best effort of 59.81m on his second throw kept him in the lead for the first four rounds.

But on the fifth attenmpt, Wu Tao of China unleased a throw of 60.76m and in the same round, Sammi Abbas managed 60.44m and that pushed Anil to the third spot.

Anju Bobby George, who had started the medal rush for India on the first day of athletics came very close to finishing with a second medal, a bronze. Anju, who won the long jump, ended fourth on countback in triple jump.

The gold went to Huang Qiyuan with a new games record of 14.28m. The previous mark was 14.27m set by Ren Ruiping in Bangkok four years ago. The silver also went to China, as Zhang hao was second with 13.89m.

The two shorter relays did not produce medals for India, though the men’s 4 x 100m team ended fourth in 39.36s. The gold went to Thailand in 38.82s, a new games record, while Japan was second in 38.90s and china was third in 39.09s. The Indian team was Sanjay Ghosh, Piyush Kumar, Anand Menezes and Anil Kumar. Indian team management filed a protest that the Chinese had made a lane infringement, but the appeals committee after seeing the TV replay rejected the Indian protest.

The women’s 4 x 100m team was fifth in 44.74s with V Jayalakshmi, Vinita Tripathi, Anuradha Biswal and Saraswati Saha doing duty. The gold medal went to China in 43.84s and the silver to Thailand in 44.25s. Uzbekistan was third in 44.32s.

But the doping controversy took the sheen out of the athletes performance as the news came as a shocker to the players and the officials alike.

In the morning at the main Busan asiad complex, the Olympic Council of Asia secretary-general, Randhir Singh, who is also the secretary-general of the Indian Olympic Association insisted that he had not heard any news.

He said that since he was the head of the task force he said that he would have been informed of the matter. Later Randhir left the stadium for the oca secretariat. "Thus far I have no information," he said before leaving.

The secretary-general of the Amateur Athletic Federation of India (AAFI), Lalit Bhanot insisted, "I have no knowledge of the positive test. This is the first time I am hearing about it."

But the giveaway of sorts came when the Chef-de-Mission, Jagdish Tytler told some mediaperson, "we have been asked to come over a meeting on Tuesday. In case of a first positive test, we will surely ask for a second test."

It is not the first time that Indian athletes have tested positive for banned substances. Back in the 1991 Asian Championships in Kuala Lumpur in 1991, steeplchaser Pyare Lal has tested positive, being caught in a random check despite finishing fifth. Then two junior athletes, both throwers had tested positive.

More recently, Indian athletes despite rumours of drug use, had cleared all tests at international meets like the 1998 Asian Games in Bangkok.

The news started out as a rumour in the morning and gained credence when a Japanese news agency was reported to have broken the unconfirmed news. (UNI)

MEDALS TALLY

G S B Total

China 149 80 72 301

South Korea 92 77 81 250

Japan 44 72 70 186

Kazakhstan 18 26 30 74

Uzbekistan 15 12 24 51

Thailand 14 18 10 42

India 11 12 13 36

Taiwan 10 17 25 52

North Korea 9 11 13 33

Iran 8 14 14 36

Saudi Arabia 7 1 1 9

Malaysia 6 8 15 29

Singapore 5 2 10 17

Vietnam 4 7 7 18

Hong Kong 4 6 11 21

Qatar 4 5 8 17

Indonesia 3 7 10 20

Bahrain 3 2 2 7

Philippines 2 7 16 25

Kuwait 2 1 5 8

Sri Lanka 2 1 3 6

Pakistan 1 6 6 13

Myanmar 1 5 6 12

Kyrgyzstan 1 5 6 12

Turkmenistan 1 2 1 4

Mongolia 1 1 12 14

Lebanon 1 0 0 1

Tajikistan 0 2 4 6

Macau 0 2 2 4

UAE 0 2 1 3

Bangladesh 0 1 0 1

Syria 0 0 3 3

Nepal 0 0 3 3

Jordan 0 0 2 2

Laos 0 0 2 2

Afghanistan 0 0 1 1

Palestine 0 0 1 1

Yemen 0 0 1 1

Brunei 0 0 1 1 (AFP)

Two major changes in Kabaddi
India’s Gehlot elected AAKF president

Excelsior e.mail Service

JAMMU, Oct 13: India’s J S Gehlot has been elected new president of the Asian Amateur Kabaddi Federation (AAKF) in an election meeting held at Busan in South Korea today.

According to a release issued here today, Japan’s S S Ichishima, Bangladesh’s Maj Gen Rezaqul Haider, Thailand’s Veravat Bhummabhutti and Pakistan’s Mohd Ali Khawaja were elected as vice-presidents.

Malaysia’s S T Arasu is the new secretary general while Rohita Ranasighe has been elected as the treasurer. The new office bearers will hold office until 2006, the handout further said.

Prior to the election meeting, Busan congress of the AAKF approved modern approach to the game in a bid to give Kabaddi a more modern look by initiating two major changes.

It (congress) endorsed and approved the decision made by the AAKF council to conduct all the international tournaments on synthetic surface. The AAKF council had adopted the decision following a successful testing of the new surface during the Malaysian Open in June this year. The Kabaddi competition at the Busan Asian Games was played on synthetic surface. Prior to this all competitions were conducted on clay courts.

The congress also approved the inclusion of bonus line rule which has been adopted successfully by several countries including India and Malaysia.

Bonus line is expected to make the game more interesting. The rule will be adopted by all countries in stages and will come in to official effect from October 6, 2003.

Originated from South Asia, the tag game of Kabaddi is played in many countries among them are India, Japan, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Malaysia, Korea, Nepal, Iran, Thailand, Bangladesh, England, Singapore and even China.

With the new rule changes and the confirmation of the sport being included at the Doha Asian Games in 2006, the AAKF is committed in elevating Kabaddi to a more modern platform, the handout informed.

PCB hit by resignations
*Pak team will bounce back: Waqar

ISLAMABAD/SHARJAH, Oct 13: Heads rolled in the Pakistan cricket establishment today with the cricket board chief Lt General Tauqir Zia and another top official quitting their posts a day after the national team suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Australia in Sharjah.

Shocked by the "margin of defeat" of the Pakistan team, which was shot out for 59 and 53 runs by the Aussies who won the second test in under two days, Zia said, "I could not handle the politics of the game. Enough is enough. I have done everything to lift the spirit of the game".

An equally dejected board director Chisty Mujahid, who submitted his resignation alongwith Zia last night to President Pervez Musharraf, also the patron of the board, said, "we never thought they will perform like that".

Pakistan cricket has been afflicted by periodic in-fighting and internal politics which has often dented the performance of its talented cricketers.

After the team’s humiliation at the Mini World Cup in Colombo last month, some key players did not find their names in the squad and team manager Yawar Saeed and coach Mudassar Nazar were also sacked.

Yet that does not appear to have helped the team’s cause as yesterday’s loss to Australia was the country’s worst-ever setback in test cricket. The total of 112 runs in both innings was also the fourth lowest total ever registered in test history.

Meanwhile, dismissing the rumours that his captaincy was under pressure after the humiliating defeat against Australia in the second test, Pakistan skipper Waqar Younis said the team can only improve from here as it cannot get any worse and will bounce back in the next encounter.

"We just have to come back strongly in the final test to redeem ourselves, " Waqar told newspersons after the match here yesterday.

He said, "I am not really under pressure as captain. What I am concerned about is the team and my job is now to pump them up and lift them to save our skins in the final match with a far better performance."

Refusing to comment on whether this was the most humiliating match he had played in during his career, Waqar said certainly he had never figured in a match which finished so quickly.

"I thought our inexperienced batting was exposed this time and our batters really didn’t bat with the concentration or application required in such conditions".

"The bowling was not bad, but the batting was abysmal and I did not expect this from even this young team," he added.

Waqar, however, made it clear that he did not expect the performance of the team to get any worse.

He accepted that the big gap between the standard of domestic cricket and test matches was one reason for the younger batsman taking longer to adjust at this level. Describing the performance of the Australians as professional, waqar said they were always expected to play hard and it was up to the Pakistan team to stand up.

The Pakistani captain did not believe that Shoaib Akhtar’s aggressiveness as a bowler had undermined the overall performance of the team or spurred the Australians to a better performance.

"Look, Shoaib is a sort of a bowler who can go through sides in one spell. He can win you matches. He is our main strike bowler. It is good for him to remain in an aggressive mode while bowling. "But yes, I think things went a bit too far and I will talk to him about it. We need to cool down things a bit out in the middle," he added.

Waqar said although not too many changes had been made in the side due to injuries or unavailability of senior players, it was a process of rebuilding that Pakistan team was going through.

"We just need to regroup ourselves now," he added.

The paceman said Pakistan would discuss what went wrong and decide on what to do in the final test.

Pakistan fell to abject defeat in less than two days of the second test against Australia yesterday, being skittled for a record-low 53 in their second innings to lose by an innings and 198 runs.

They had been dismissed for their previous record low of 59 in their first innings yesterday and their match total of 112 was the fourth worst in test history.

Australia, who won the first test by 41 runs in Colombo, take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-test match series. (AGENCIES)

JIM gets Vrikshamitra award

Excelsior Sports Correspondent

JAMMU, Oct 13: Jawahar Institute of Mountaineering (JIM) and Winter Sports, Batote honoured with prestigious Indira Priyadarshini Vrikshamitra Award by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India.

The award carries an amount of Rs one lakh, a scroll and a memento. The award was received by the Institute principal, Group Captain, S S Puri from Chief Minister of Karnataka at a function held in Bangalore.

Speaking on the occasion, the head of the Institute, revealed the gathering that he took upon himself to make the masses aware of the responsibility of every citizen towards conservation of environment and in particular for the afforestation.

Ganguly steals limelight

KOLKATA, Oct 13: Indian skipper Saurav Ganguly today stole the limelight when he came at the Barisha players corners Durga Puja pandal in Behala area in the city, close to his house.

He offered prayers in the morning along with tens of local people of different ages. His security guards had a tough time to keep him away from the public. (UNI)

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