Suriya runs personal best but finishes 13th in 10,000m

Suriya Loganathan ran her personal best but that was good enough for a 13th place finish in 10,000m race while shot putter Tejinder Pal Singh Toor took the eighth spot with a below-par show on the second day of athletics competition in the Commonwealth Games here today.

Suriya fractionally ran better than her earlier personal best of 32:23.96 as she clocked 32 minute and 23.56 seconds to finish 13th in a field of 19 at the Carrara Stadium tracks.

Stella Chessang of Uganda won the gold in 31:45.30 while Stacy Ndiwa (31:46.36) and Mercyline Chelangat (31:48.41) took the silver and bronze respectively.

In men's shot put, Toor could only come up with an effort of 19.42m, nearly one meter outside his personal best of 20.40m to end his campaign in disappointment. Four of his six attempts were sub-19m while he fouled the fifth one. His best throw of 19.42m came in the third attempt.

Quartermiler Muhammed Anas qualified for the finals after winning his semifinal heat in 45.44 seconds. Anas holds the national record of 45.40 seconds. His final race will be held tomorrow.

Anas became the second Indian ever to make the finals of the One Lap Race in the quadrennial Games after the legendary Milkha Singh had won a gold for India in 440 yards race at Cardiff in 1958 in 46.6 seconds.

Earlier in the day, national record holder Tejaswin Shankar advanced to the finals of the high jump competition after finishing ninth in the qualifying round.

Shankar finished a joint fifth in Group A and ninth overall. The Indian cleared 2.21m in final analysis after starting out at 2.10m.

None of the competitors in fray could touch the official mark set at 2.27m with 2.21m being the best effort by the top 12, who made the cut for the finals scheduled on April 14.

The 21-year-old Shankar is a Youth Commonwealth Games gold-medallist. He had qualified for the Games by claiming a national record of 2.28m during the Federation Cup last month.

Among others who advanced were Australian cricketer Mitchell Starc's younger brother Brandon Starc, a crowd favourite at today's event.

In the women's 400m heats, India's Hima Das made the semifinals with a timing of 52.11sec, which left her eighth in the overall standings.

However, M R Povamma failed to move ahead, clocking 53.72sec in her heat to finish 24th overall.