Legendary P T Usha's protege Tintu Luka stole the limelight on the first day of the Asian All-Star Athletics meet with a personal best timing to win the gold medal in women's 800 metres, in Delhi, on Thursday.
Luka bagged the gold with an effort of 2 minutes 01.24 seconds and bettered her earlier best of 2:01.61, which she clocked in May at the National Open in Kochi.
Her timing was also a new meet record, bettering Kazakhstan's Margarita Matsko's 2:05.84 seconds though the event is just three years old.
Veteran Sinimole Paulose won silver with a timing of 2:04.58 seconds while Japanese Ayako Jinnouchi (2:05.51) bagged the bronze.
Long jumper Mayookha Johney also came up with a personal best of 6.64 metres to upset favourite Yulia Tarasova of Uzbekistan (6.49m) and claim the gold in the women's event. Another Indian, M A Prajusha won
bronze with an effort of 6.30m.
India ended day one of the two-day US $70,000 prize-money event, which was skipped by top Asian athletes, on top with six gold, five silver and six bronze.
Each winner will get US $1,500 while silver and bronze medallists of each of the 25 events will get US $800 and US $500 respectively.
More than 200 athletes from 14 countries are taking part in the meet, which is a test event for the Commonwealth Games, in Delhi, from October 3-14.
In the women's 100m hurdles, Kazakhstan's Anastasiya Soprunova, who made a clean sweep of golds in all the three legs of the Asian Grand Prix last month, won the race in 13.66 seconds, ahead of India's Gayathri Govindharaj who clocked 13.82s. Uzbekistan's Anastasiya Proshkina finished third.
National record holder Anuradha Biswal finished last in the six-athlete field with a timing of 14.74s. Her national mark is 13.38s.
In the men's high jump, national record holder Hari Shankar Roy won a bronze with a clearance of 2.15m.
Sri Lanka's WP Manjula Kumara won gold with a jump of 2.21m while Vitaly Tsykunov (2.18m) bagged the silver.
Mandeep Kaur ran her season's best of 52.29s to win the women's 400m gold, ahead of Kazakhstan's Julia Gavrilova (52.93s), while another Indian, Juana Murmu, was third in 53.17sec.
National discus record holder Vikas Gowda came all the way from his training base in the United States to clear just 54.39m, well below his national mark of 64.96m, though he won the gold in an all-Indian field. Arjun Singh (47.54m) and Arpinder Singh (47.22m) bagged silver and bronze respectively.
