Gowda enters shot put final

In women's 400m, Manjit Kaur booked a berth in the semi-finals slated for Monday.

India's Vikas Gowda produced his season's best performance to book a berth in the men's shot put final at the 18th Commonwealth Games' athletics competition on Sunday.

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The 22-year-old Gowda hurled the metal to a distance of 18.37 m on his third throw to claim the fifth spot in the qualifiers at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

His first attempt was declared a no throw, while the ball travelled a distance of 17.91 m on his second effort. The US-based Gowda's previous best was 18.09m, which he achieved at Raleigh (USA) in March last year.

Australia's Scott Martin finished first in the qualifiers with a throw of 19.64 m, followed by Janus Robberts of South Africa (19.40m) and Carl Myerscough of England (18.95m) on the second and third spots respectively.

Though the cut was fixed at 19.50 m, none of the competitors save Martin was able to reach it, and hence, as per rules, the best 12 performers made their way into the final scheduled for Monday.

In women's 400m, Manjit Kaur booked a berth in the semi-finals slated for Monday as she clocked 53.06 seconds to finish fourth in her heat.

Kaur, whose timing was also considerably slower than her season's best of 51.50 secs which enabled her to claim the gold in the Asian Atheltics Championships at Korea's Incheon last September, finished 14th overall in the qualifiers.