Dhanalakshmi, Ancy Sojan win gold in Kazakhstan

Almaty (Kazakhstan): Ace sprinter S Dhanalakshmi ran her personal best time to win the 200m gold at the Qosanov Memorial Athletics Meet while the likes of shot putter Tajinderpal Singh Toor and javelin thrower Rohit Yadav returned to India without competing in the event here on Sunday.

Dhanalakshmi ran a creditable sub-23 second, clocking 22.89s to better her earlier personal best of 23.14s she had come up last year. She had won the gold in the national Inter-Sate Championships in Chennai earlier this month with a time of 23.27s.

She missed the automatic qualification mark of 22.8s for World Championships (July 15 to 24) in Oregon, USA, but will have to see if she can make it to the showpiece through world ranking quota. The World Championships qualification deadline ended on Sunday midnight.

Dhanalakshmi is only the third Indian woman to run sub-23s after national record holder Saraswati Saha (22.82s) and Hima Das (22.88s).

Another Indian Dutee Chand was third with a time of 23.60s.

Keralite Ancy Sojan won the women's long jump gold with a performance of 6.44m. Ancy, who is in the CWG team, had won silver in the National Inter-State Championships with 6.49m.

Toor and Rohit, however, did not take part in the meet and they are reaching India on Monday as they have to complete formalities for USA visa for the World Championships.

Rohit and D P Manu, who had won gold in National Inter-State Championships with a throw of 84.35m, have been named in the CWG team along with Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra.

In other events, Sarita Singh, who was named in the 36-member Indian team for the upcoming Commonwealth Championships "subject to guidelines achieved in Kazakhstan" won the gold. But her best effort of 62.48m was below the CWG qualifying guidelines of 64m, set by the Athletics Federation of India (AFI).

India swept the women's javelin throw medals with Annu Rani taking the gold with a performance of 62.29m. Annu, who had won gold in the National Inter-State Championships, with a throw of 60.97m, has been included in the CWG team.

Shipa Rani and Sanjana Choudhary took the silver and bronze with a disappointing 56.16m and 55.12m efforts respectively.

Shilpa, who was named in the CWG team "subject to accreditation is received", had won silver in the National Inter-State Championships with 59.01m.

On Saturday night, Vithya Ramraj had become the fourth fastest Indian woman in 400m hurdles as she clocked 56.87s to win gold.