Chitra, Lakshmanan strike gold at Asian Indoor

Indians add 2 gold, 1 silver in Asian Indoor Games

India's impressive show in the 5th Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games continued as their athletes added two gold and one bronze on the fourth day of competitions, in, Ashgabat, on Tuesday.

Govindan Lakshmanan and PU Chitra clinched a gold each in men's 5000m and women's 1500m races while Dharmender won the bronze in men's freestyle 70kg belt wrestling as India's medal
count swelled to 3 gold, 2 silver and 2 bronze.

India are now at ninth spot in the medal tally. Hosts Turkmenistan consolidated their top spot with 39 gold, 27 silver and 18 bronze.

Lakshmanan added an indoor gold to his 5000m outdoor title in the Asian Championships in Bhubaneswar in July as he clocked 8 minute and 2.30 seconds to run away winner at the Indoor Athletics Arena here.

Chitra, whose omission from India's team for the London World Championships last month had created a furore and led to a court case, clocked 4 minute 27.77 seconds to win the gold in the women's 1500m race. She had won the outdoor gold in the Asian Championships in Bhubaneswar in 4:17.92.

Dharmender won the bronze in men's freestyle 70kg belt wrestling. He lost to Annamyradow Ýagsymyrat of Turkmenistan in the semifinals. Both the semifinalists gets a bronze each.

India's top sprinter Dutee Chand missed out on a medal by a whisker as she finished fourth with a time of 7.44 seconds in women's 60m dash. She was a one-hundreth of a second behind bronze winner Olga Safronova (7.43 seconds) of Kazakhstan.

On Monday, India had won one gold, two silver and one bronze, all coming from track and field athletes.