India win four medals in Asian Martial Arts Games

Ashgabat (Turkmenistan), Sep 18 (PTI) Indian opened its medal account in style by grabbing one gold, two silver and one bronze through track and field athletes on the third day of fifth Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, here today.

Purnima Hembram bagged the lone gold in the women’s pentathlon event as she collected aggregate 4062 points from five events.

Tejinder Pal Singh Toor and Sanjivani Jadhav won a silver medal each in men’s shot put and women’s 3000m respectivley while Neena Varakil took a bronze in women’s long jump.

Tejinder sent the iron ball to a best distance of 19.26m which he came up in his third attempt to bag the silver. Ivan Ivanov of Kazakhstan won the gold with a Games Record throw of 19.60m.

Sanjivani, on the other hand, clocked 9 minutes 26.34 seconds to win the silver in women’s 3000m race. Mohammed Alia Mohammed of United Arab Emirates won the gold with a time of 9:25.03s.

In women’s long jump, Neena took the bronze with a modest leapt of 6.04m. Olga Rypakova of Kazakhstan and Thi Thu Thao Bui of Vietnam won the gold and silver respectively with efforts of 6.43m and 6.36m.

With the four medals won today, India is now at 11th spot in the medals tally, which is led by hosts Turkmenistan (26 gold, 21 silver, 12 bronze).

India is being represented by 203 athletes in 15 sports disciplines in the Games, touted as the second biggest multi- sporting event of the continent after the Asiad.