The Indian 4x400m mixed relay team won silver at the Asian Games on Monday to take the country's medal haul from the track and field to 16. It wasn't a straightforward conclusion though, as they had initially been declared bronze medal winners before second-placed Sri Lanka were disqualified due to lane infringement.
Muhammed Ajmal Variyathodi, Vithya Ramraj, Rajesh Ramesh and Subha Venkatesan ran the race with a total time of 3:14.34s. The gold medal winning Bahraini team registered a time of 3:14.02s while bronze medallists Kazakhstan ran the race in 3:24.85. Sri Lanka had initially registered a time of 3:14.25s before being disqualified.
Earlier in the day, India picked a silver and a bronze in the women's 3000m steeplechase event while Ancy Sojan won silver in women's long jump. Parul Chaudhary won silver and Priti snatched bronze in a rather exciting finish to the battle for third spot. Bahraini world champion Winfred Yavi took gold medal and smashed the Asian Games record as well. Yavi registered a time of 9:18.28 while Parul registered a new personal best of 9:27.63. It was almost a photo finish for Priti against Bahrain's Getnet Mekonnen and she registered a new personal best as well of 9:43.32.
Later, Ancy bettered her personal best twice to win silver in long jump. She jumped 6.56m in her third attempt and 6.63m in her fifth. Ancy registered a foul jump only at her sixth and final attempt. Shaili Singh, the other Indian in the fray, finished fifth with a best attempt of 6.48m. China's Xiong Shiqi took gold with a 6.73m whole Hong Kong's Yue Nga Yan jumped a personal best mark of 6.50m to win bronze.
{{/usCountry}}Later, Ancy bettered her personal best twice to win silver in long jump. She jumped 6.56m in her third attempt and 6.63m in her fifth. Ancy registered a foul jump only at her sixth and final attempt. Shaili Singh, the other Indian in the fray, finished fifth with a best attempt of 6.48m. China's Xiong Shiqi took gold with a 6.73m whole Hong Kong's Yue Nga Yan jumped a personal best mark of 6.50m to win bronze.
{{/usCountry}}India's medal haul from athletics has gone up to 16. Kiran Baliyan had been the first track and field athlete from the country to win a medal in Hangzhou this year when she took bronze in women's shot put. There was a bit of a medal rush on Sunday in athletics for India with Tajinderpal Singh Toor and Avinash Sable's gold medals in men's shot put and men's 3000m steeple chase. Toor defended his Asian Games gold while Sable smashed the Games record to cruise to a comfortable win.
Silvers were won on the day by Harmilan Bains (women's 1500m), Murali Sreeshankar (men's long jump), Ajay Kumar Saroj (men's 1500m) and Jyothi Yarraji (women's 100m hurdles), with the latter running a race that was riddled with controversy and almost getting disqualified as well. Jinson Johnson (men's 1500m) won bronze.