India's lone woman high jumper crashes out of Olympics

India's Sahana Kumari got knocked out of the women's high jump at the Olympic Games after clearing 1.80m and finishing at joint 15th in the Group B of the qualifying competition here today.

The 30-year-old athlete sailed over the bar at the first attempt with a 1.80m leap but failed in her endeavour to clear the 1.85m mark in all her three attempts and got eliminated.

The Bangalore-based athlete had earlier made it to the Games with a leap of 1.92m at the National Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships in Hyderabad on June 23, which erased the meet mark of 1.91m held by Bobby Aloysius of Kerala since 2004.

The best clearance in the event was by Uzbekistan's Svetlana Radzivil, who topped Group B with her season's best of 1.96m.

Apart from Svetlana, four others - Belgium's Tia Helle, USA's Chaunte Lowe, Russia's Svetlana Shkolina and Irina Gordeeva -made it to the finals from this Group with a clearance of 1.93m.

Meanwhile, Spain's Ruth Beitia along with Russia's Anna Chicherova, Sweden's Emma Green Tregaro and France's Melanie Melfort topped the Group A with a leap of 1.93m.

The other athletes who qualified from Group A include Burcu Ayhan from Turkey, USA's Brigetta Barrett and Lithuania's Airine Palsyte. The final of the event would be held on August 11.