Chennai: Legendary PT Usha's protege Tintu Luka avenged her defeat to Kazakhstan's Margarita Matsko by winning the gold in the women's 800m in the third leg of the Asian Grand Prix athletics championships at the Nehru Stadium on Jun 9.

Tintu was second at the first leg in Pune with a time of 2:03.14 secs, but today she adopted a typical strategy to clock 2:03.67 secs and pip Margarita (2:04.42) and Sushma Devi (2:04.42) of India.

Meanwhile, ace Indian discuss thrower Krishna Poonia , ranked ninth in the world, clinched her third gold of the series with a throw of 59.94m, which was way below her effort in Bangalore (61.64m) but better than Pune (59.51m). Among other Indians, Manikanda Raj, Joseph Abraham and Gajanan Upadhyay all have maintained their unbeaten record in their respective events.

Manikanda clocked 21.69 secs to win the gold in 200m, while Abraham posted a season's best 50.24 secs to win the 400m hurdles and pole vaulting ace Gajanan Upadhyay failed to clear 5m height in his three attempts but still won the gold with a clearance of 4.90m.

Javelin thrower Kashinath Naik, the reigning South Asian Games champion, was another athlete who registered a seasonal best of 75.23m to win the gold. However, triple jumper Renjith Maheswary and shot putter Om Prakash Singh suffered shock defeats.