Rio de Janeiro: Lalita Babar failed to reproduce the excellent form she displayed in the heats and finished 10th in the final of the women’s 3,000m steeplechase here on Monday.
Lalita clocked 9:22.74 seconds — nearly three seconds behind her national record timing set three days ago, in the water and barrier race — at the Olympic Stadium.
The Maharashtra athlete was inside the top eight competitors midway, but was not able to push as much as she would have liked towards the closing laps.
“I tried my best. The idea was to improve my time in the heats but I couldn’t do that. But I am happy that in my first Olympic Games, I was able to make the final,” said Lalita.
“I knew winning a medal was very tough. But I wanted to at least clock a good time. I couldn’t better my record, but still it is a good time,” she added.
Lalita had banged her knee against a hurdle in the heats, causing a bruise, but she didn’t offer it as an excuse. “The pain is still there, but I didn’t think too much about it. If you start thinking about such things, you won’t be able to run well,” said the girl from Satara district.
She had qualified for the final as a lucky loser, managing to squeeze in among the next top eight fastest outside the top two of each heat who qualified directly.
Lalita also became the first Indian woman to qualify for an individual Olympic track event final since PT Usha did so in 400m hurdles in the 1984 Games.
Meanwhile, Ruth Jebet of Bahrain claimed the gold medal after finishing the race in 8:59.75 minutes, while Hyvin Kiyeng Jepkemoi of Kenya was second with a timing of 9:07.12. Emma Coburn of the US won the bronze medal in 9:07.63.
Beatrice Chepkoech of Kenya finished a distant fourth with a timing of 9:16.05.
In triple jump, Renjith Maheshwary finished a disappointing 30th to crash out of the qualification round. Competing in his second Olympics, Maheshwary found himself at the 11th spot in the qualifiers, after an effort of 15.80 metres in his first attempt, which was way short of the qualification mark.
In the second attempt, the Indian jumped 16.13 metres, which still was short of the qualification mark of 16.95 metres. Placed at the 23rd spot, he could just manage a jump of 15.99 in the third and final.
Christian Taylor of the US topped the qualification stage with a jump of 17.24 metres followed by China’s Bin Dong at second with 17.10m, while another US athlete, Will Claye, jumped 17.05 metres to emerge third.
In 200 metres for women, Srabani Nanda failed to qualify for the semi-finals after finishing 55th among 72 competitors in round one. She clocked 23.58 seconds.
In 85kg Greco Roman wrestling, India’s Ravinder Khatri lost to Hungary’s Viktor Lorincz by technical superiority in men’s 1/8 finals. The 24-year-old Indian failed to provide any resistance during a 0-9 loss.
