Taekwondo: Seema emerges a comfortable winner

By Our Sports Reporter

BANGALORE, MAY 3. Seema Deswal of Haryana bagged the gold medal and a cash award of Rs. 5000 in the girls' bantamweight section of the second prizemoney junior national taekwondo tournament, which commenced at the Sree Kanteerva Indoor Stadium here on Thursday. Seema emerged a clear-cut 6-2 winner over Parul Chowdary of Delhi.

In the boys' lightweight category, Karnataka's Mohammed Imran was a lucky title winner defeating Ranjit Kumar Singh of Bihar in the final. Ranjit Kumar Singh suffered an ankle and knee injury and opted out of the contest in the second round. Mohammed Imran was lucky to make the final after splitting points with Manipur's Thiyam Herojit Singh in a closely-contested bout. Herojit lost after a 3-3 verdict from the judges as he adopted negative tactics and was often forced out of the playing arena.

Seema began her contest against Parul on a cautious note. Adopting defensive tactics at first, Seema switched to offence after Parul was also unwilling to attack. Seema, with a longer reach because of the height advantage, landed more kicks and punches to collect the winning points.

Seema had won two silver medals in the fin weight category at Lucknow in 1999 and Kolkata in Feb. 2000. She has been training at SAI, South, under the guidance of Korean coach Kim Hong Jo. She is a 12th-standard student at Sonepat in Haryana.

Karnataka's Mohammed Imran must consider himself fortunate to win the lightweight title. A strongly slugged out semifinal with Thiyam Herojit Singh in which the scores were tied at 3-3, saw the latter losing out unluckily. In the final too, Mohammed Imran was guilty of uneven distribution of bodyweight and depending heavily on the single strike. Had Imran pressed on with the double strike he could have collected more points. However, Imran once again rode on his luck. An injury to his opponent Ranjit Kumar Singh saw the latter throwing in the towel after the first round, giving the crown to Imran on a platter. Imran, to his credit, had finished fourth in the junior World Cup in Ireland recently. He is a 12th-standard student at Sheshadripuram College.

In the third final of the evening, Atul Pant of Madhya Pradesh eked out a 3-2 victory over Shashi Ranjan Choudary of Manipur while Rishi Kant Singh also of Manipur took the third spot.

* The results:

Junior boys: Light weight: Gold: Mohammed Imran (Kar); Silver: Ranjit Kumar Singh (Bihar); Bronze: Dharmesh Sharma (M.P.); Fin weight: Gold: Atul Pant (M.P.); Silver: Shashi Ranjan Choudhary (Man); Bronze: Rishi Kant Singh (Man).

Girls: Bantam weight: Gold: Seema Deswal (Har); Silver: Parul Chowdhary (Del); Bronze: Sunita Devi (Manipur).

Karnataka's Mohammed Imran (right) about to land a kick on Ranjit Kumar Singh of Bihar in a boys' light weight contest of the junior National taekwondo tournament in Bangalore on Thursday. Imran took the gold.

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