Vikas Gowda settles for silver in discus throw

Incheon, Vikas Gowda lost out to his old nemesis and defending champion Ehsan Hadadi of Iran once again as he settled for a silver in men’s discus throw event in the Asian Games in Incheon on Tuesday.

Gowda, who recently won the gold in Glasgow Commonwealth Games, came up with a best effort of 62.58m which he did in his second attempt to fetch the silver at the Incheon Asiad Main Stadium.

Hadadi, who was struggling for form this season but a pre-Games favourite, outperformed Gowda with a best throw of 65.11m to clinch the gold and run away with his hat trick of titles. He has also won gold in 2006 and 2010 Asian Games.

Gowda had finished third in 2006 Doha Games.

The Iranian Asian record holder with 69.32m, one of the top discus throwers in the world, threw the disc better than Gowda’s 62.58m four times today as he had 64.89, 63.77 and 64.47 in his fourth to sixth attempts.

Gowda, who had won gold in Glasgow with 63.64m, had three foul throws in his last three attempts as he failed to mount any challenge to his Iranian rival. The Indian has a season’s best of 65.62m while his personal best — also the national record — is 66.28m.

It was a case of Gowda hitting the Hadadi hurdle once again as he has done better than the Iranian only once in 17 clashes he had in his career, including today’s final. The lone instance when Gowda did better than Hadadi was in the Doha leg of the prestigious IAAF Diamond League Meeting in May when the Indian was second while the Iranian was seventh.

Gowda had, however, finished eighth and Hadadi third in the New York leg of Diamond League Meetings in June.

Meanwhile, Asha Roy failed to qualify in the 200m finals as she finished third in heat number one with a below-par 23.96secs. She has a season’s best of 23.75secs and personal best of 23.59secs.