Middle-distance runner, Jessy Joseph missed the gold medal by a whisker as India returned with two silvers and a bronze on the third day of the 16th Asian junior athletics championships here today.
The coveted gold medal eluded Indians for the third consecutive day after Joseph, a trainee of PT Usha, had to settle for a silver despite her best efforts.
Kerela's Joseph, forced to run two races of 800m distance on the same day, was locked in an unexpected battle with Kyrgyzstan's Kseniia Faiskanova in the morning's heats.
They both registered an identical time of 2:11.55 in the second heat, while Japan's Ryoko Hirano was top in first heat clocking 2:12.60.
However Hirano, credited with a personal best of 2:05.16 since 2012, made things difficult for the Kerala girl and Jessy made a gallant effort to stick with her throughout the final race on the evening.
At the end, Hirano had an 'edge' of two-hundredth of a second over the Indian (2:06.75 to 2:06.77) for the title.
India's Archana Adhav joined Jessy on the podium with her third place finish in 2:09.11.
Japanese high school champion Mako Fukube, 18, won the 100m hurdles in a modest 13.98 secs.
Meghana Shetty, who hails from Karnataka, returned a personal best 14.09 secs for the silver while Singapore's Wong Min Jannah made the podium with 14.14s.
