Deborah eyes encore

V C BABU MENDA New Delhi: Promising Indian cyclist Deborah ensured herself and the country a second medal by reaching the final of the individual sprint event, following a nerve-wracking win over Malaysia's Farihah Sha Mohd Adnan in the Hero Asian Cycling Championships, here on Saturday. Deborah was marginally behind her semifinal opponent until the half-way mark of the three lap race but the 16-year old firmly peddled her way to exceed Farihah and won the first heat by 0.066 secs. In the second heat, Deborah was quick to take lead and maintained the momentum. She kept the lead but Farihah gave her a stiff competition, finishing just 0.005 sec behind the local favourite. The tsunami-survivor, who will emerge as the country's only two medal winner, will now fight it out with Korea's Yeonhee Jang on Monday for the gold medal. She had won a bronze in the 500m time trial on the opening day of the Championship. The Indian team includes Jashanjeet Kaur, Geeturaj N and Bidhyalaxmi Devi apart from Deborah.Meanwhile, in a nail-biting finish, Korea clinched the gold in the Women Elite 4km Pursuit beating the formidable Japan. China won the bronze. Incidentally, the three top finishers broke the Asian Cycling Championship and Asian records. Results-Women: Elite 4km Pursuit- Gold-Korea (Minhye Lee, Hee Jung Son,Eun Hee Kim and Youri Kim), Silver- Japan (Kanako Kase, Minami Uwano, Sakura Tsukagoshi, Yoko Kojima), Bronze- China (Li Zhang, Hui Sha, Jiu Jin Li, Xingyu Gong); Men Elite 4km Pursuit: Gold- Korea (Sunjee Jang, Seonho Park, Sungbaek Park, Keonwoo Park), Silver- Japan (Eiya Hashimoto, Kajushige Kuboki, Shogo Ishimaru, Kazuki Ito), Bronze- Hong Kong (King Wai Cheung, Ho Ting Kwok, Chun Wing Leung, Ki Ho Choi); 10km Women Scratch: Gold: Eun Hee Kim (Korea), Silver: Hsiao Chia Tseng (Taipei), Bronze: Xingyu Gong (China); Men 15km Scratch: Gold: Hosung Cho (Korea), Silver: Hossien Neteghi (Iran), Bronze: Chin Feng Liu (Taipei).