Sudha Singh almost committed an elementary mistake in her 3000m, steeplechase event at the Asian Games here when she took it easy in the homestretch, not realising that another athlete was close on her heels
Sudha Singh almost committed an elementary mistake in her 3000m, steeplechase event at the Asian Games here when she took it easy in the homestretch, not realising that another athlete was close on her heels.
Thankfully, she made up for her error in the nick of time and just managed to finish ahead of China's Jin Yuan to clinch the gold clocking 9:55.67 seconds.u00a0
Sudha was no pre-race favourite having finished fifth in the New Delhi CWG and second at the nationals earlier this year.u00a0 She ran the race confidently keeping Yuan within her sights before making a dash for it in the final stages creating almost a 5-6 m gap between herself and the Chinese.
But Yuan was closer than Sudha expected. Egged on by a vociferous 70,000 strong capacity crowd rooting for China, and with about 60 meters to the finish, Yuan gave it her all and closed the gap between herself and the Indian and was shoulder-to-shoulder with Kavita inches from the finish line. But, the Indian had a little more energy left and ensured she warded off the Chinese threat with one last push across the line that handed her gold by four one-hundreths of a second. Sudha clocked 9:55.67sec while Yuan timed 9:55.71 for the silver and Japan's Minori Hayakari took bronze with 10:01.25.u00a0
Sudha later referred to a similar incident she faced not too long ago. "She gave me a tough fight. It was a similar situation in the CWG when I was pipped to the fifth position from fourth. I remembered that and told myself I should not lose out this time," she said.
