O P Jaisha smashed her own national record while finishing 18th, one place above compatriot Sudha Singh, in the women's marathon event as the World Athletics Championships concluded today with none of the Indians even remotely coming up with any chance of winning a medal.
Jaisha, a bronze medal winner in the 1500m event in 2014 Incheon Asian Games, clocked 2:34:43 to complete the early morning marathon race at 18th to better her earlier national mark of 2:37:29 set in January in the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon.
Sudha finished just behind Jaisha at 19th with a time of 2:35:35. In fact, Sudha's timing was also better than Jaisha's earlier national record.
32-year-old Jaisha has already qualified for next year's Olympics while Sudha today booked a ticket for the 2016 Rio Games on the basis of her today's timing. The qualifying standard for marathon in Rio Olympics is 2:42:00 and the qualifying period has begun from January 1 this year.
The third Indian entry in the marathon race, Lalita Babar preferred to skip the event after having run 3000m steeplechase twice this week and with a creditable eight-place finish.
Ethiopian Mare Dibaba took the gold in 2:27:35, just ahead of her Kenyan rival Helah Kiprop (2:27:36). Another Kenyan-origin athlete, now running under Bahraini flag, Eunice Jepkirui took the third spot in 2:27:39.
Expectedly, Indians ended their campaign without any impact in the showpiece athletics event, touted as the second biggest and most high-profile behind FIFA World Cup.
Babar was the best performer for India with her eight-place finish in women's 3000m steeplechase. She smashed her own national record in the qualifying round to become the first Indian athlete in track events to make it to the final round.
The second national record from Jaisha today was the other better performance while main hope, discus thrower Vikas Gowda and shot putter Inderjeet Singh disappointed after entering the final round. Gowda ended at ninth while Inderjeet finished at 11th.
The likes of half miler Tintu Luka and women's 4x400m relay quartet came a cropper as they crashed out at the first round heats.
