India end athletics events on a high

Doha: Although India's athletes have let themselves down after their haul of seven gold medals at the last Asian Games at Busan by winning just one this time around, at least they ended their campaign in Doha well

There was a gold for the women's 4x400 metres relay team on Tuesday and their male counterparts clinched silver behind Saudi Arabia in the same event.

On the last day of the athletics events India were searching for their first gold and the quartet of Sati Geetha, Pinki Pramanik, Chitra Kulathummuriyil and Manjeet Kaur made sure that the athletics team would not return without the gold.

India started a little shakily battling for third spot with Japan but after that they just kept pushing the runners from China in every lap.

Manjeet Kaur came up with an amazing final push to win the gold for India.

"Aaj hamne soocha tha ki hamara gold hi aayega. Thodi thandi thi phir bhi hamne accha kiya aur India ke liye gold jeeta (We had thought that we would win the gold. It was cold but we gave our best and won the gold)," Manjeet Kaur said.

The men's 4x400m relay team didn't quite reach the same heights but weren't too far behind.

Bhupinder Singh, Binu Mathew, Joseph Abraham and Thanikkal ran like men possessed to keep Sri Lanka and Japan at bay to finish second.

"Today's race was really very fantastic. All the four ran very well so we were able to win the medal. Actually we expected the gold but some thing unexpected happened. The baton change between first and second runner was not smooth. We are very happy with the silver too," Binu Mathew said.

And there was more cheer on Tuesday with Siminole Pauulose winning bronze in the 1500metres.

India ended the athletics competition with a total of 10 medals, which included one gold, five silvers and four bronzes.

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