Seema Antil does her country proud

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, OCT. 20. Seema Antil has won the first-ever global title by an Indian athlete.

The 18-year-old Haryana girl clinched the women's discus gold in the World junior athletic championship at Santiago, Chile, on Thursday, after a close battle with a Chinese athlete. The gold medal came on her last throw after the Chinese girl, Xu Shaoyang, had snatched the lead away from the Indian in the final round. This is the first ever medal for an Indian athlete, junior or senior, at the global level.

It was confirmation of Seema's status as the No. 1 under-20 woman discus thrower this season, on the strength of her Calcutta Open performance, as well as of her position as the leader among the qualifiers on Wednesday. Then, she had led both the groups of the qualification round, comprising 24 throwers, with a throw of 54.83 metres.

``She fought bravely,'' said the Chief Coach of the junior team, Mr. J.S. Saini. ``To have come back after the Chinese girl threw 54.41 in the last round was a tremendous effort,'' Saini told The Hindu on phone from Santiago, past midnight Chilean time.

The Chinese led after the opening round, with a 52.98m, while Seema had 52.52. The tall Sonepat girl, who this year joined the Central Reserve Police Force, took over the lead in the third round with 53.28m effort and that seemed to have clinched all the arguments till Xu Shaoyang came up with 54.41. German Jana Tucholke was the bronze winner with a personal best of 53.97m.

``We kept cheering her up from the stands and she put everything into that last throw,'' said Mr. Saini of Seema's gold-winning 55.27m.

``At last I have been able to see an Indian win a world medal. I can retire in peace,'' said Mr. Saini, overjoyed with the effort of the Haryana girl who only last year had joined the senior National camp. ``I will also have the satisfaction that a medal came at this level through the efforts of our junior programme,'' Mr. Saini added.

Coming as it does at a time when Indian athletics is recovering from the dismal performance in the Sydney Olympics, Seema's feat should give the junior programme the much-needed boost. Provided, of course, the pitfalls that the seniors encountered are avoided. In the 1996 championships in Sydney, Sunita Rani and N. Gojen Singh had made the finals in long distance events. In the post- Sydney phase, Sunita had blossomed into a top-level middle and long-distance runner before being laid low this year with a hip injury before the Olympics.

Coming back to Seema, she had shown remarkable improvement this season when she moved from 47.04 in late February to 57.20 in the Open National at Calcutta, 10 days ago. That effort helped her upstage the National record holder Neelam Jaswant Singh and also pushed her up to the No. 1 spot in the world junior lists for the season, displacing Vera Begic of Croatia, who had a 56.22 recorded in July. In between Seema had finished anywhere between fourth and sixth in the domestic meets with four performances above 50 metres. Incidentally, Begic finished sixth (52.28m) in yesterday's competition.

Barring Seema's performance, India has had only disappointments in the championships at Santiago. Among those eliminated in the heats on Wednesday were high hurdler Gurpreet Singh and women's 400m runner Sapinder Kaur. Gurpreet clocked a creditable 14.39s in the heats to finish fifth while Sapinder timed a poor 56.52 in the 400m heats to also come fifth.

On Thursday, shot putter Kuleep Singh Mann performed well below his performance-levels back home with a 15.78 in the qualifying rounds that gave him an overall 28th placing out of 37 contestants.

Going into the Santiago championships, Kuldeep was one of only eight shot putters in the world junior lists who had crossed 18 metres this season. The gold eventually went for a championship record of 19.48, Dutchman Rutger Smith claiming it. The top 10 crossed 18 metres in the final.

The Union Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports, Mr. S.S. Dhindsa has congratulated Seema Antil on her splendid achievement at Santiago.

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