Poonia finishes 7th in discus throw at Olympics

London: India’s Krishna Poonia put in a below-par performance to finish seventh in the women’s discus throw event of the London Olympics here today. The 35-year-old failed to even come near her personal best effort of 64.76 as he hurled the discus to a distance of 63.62m to end her Olympic campaign on a rather dismal note. Though Poonia was not regarded as a serious medal contender, it was expected that she would do a little better than what she produced today in front of a capacity crowd at the Olympic stadium. Croatia’s Sandra Perkovic bagged the gold medal with a throw of 69.11 to create a new national record. Her effort was well below Germany’s Garbriele Reinsch’s world record of 76.80m. [caption id=“attachment_405273” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  India’s Krishna Poonia competes in the women’s discus throw during athletics competition in the Olympic Stadium. AP[/caption] The silver medal went to Russia’s Darya Pishchalnikova who hurled the disc to a distance of 67.56m while China’s Yanfeng Li had to be content with the bronze medal with a throw of 67.22m. Amid strong winds blowing across the stadium, Poonia’s best throw came in the fifth attempt when she managed 63.62 and overall it was a performance which left much to be desired. She started the final with a 62.42 in the first attempt while her second attempt was a foul throw. The third attempt was another poor throw of 61.61m before producing her best effort in the fifth. In the sixth and last attempt, she gave her best but could throw just 61.89. There was more disappointment for the Indians in the men’s 20km race walk in which only K T Irfan put up a decent show to finish in the tenth position with a timing of 1:20:21. The two other walkers in the fray – Gurmeet Singh and Baljinder Singh – failed to make much of an impression. The 22-year-old Irfan was the pick of the Indian walkers as he gave an impressive display. Gurmeet singh finished in the 33rd position with a timing of 1:23:34 while Baljinder Singh took the 43rd spot with a timing of 1:25;39. The gold medal went to China’s Ding Chen who created an Olympic record of 1:18:56, eclipsing the previous record of Poland’s Robert Korzeniowski (1:18:59). PTI