India's medal hope Krishna Poonia today qualified for the women's discus throw final round in London Olympics while her compatriot Seema Antil missed out by a whisker on the first day of track and field events here.

Earlier in the day, shot putter Om Prakash Karhana and triple jumper Mayookha Johny failed to advance to the final round after finishing 19th and 22nd respectively in the qualification round.

Poonia finished eighth in the qualification round while Antil ended at 13th at the showpiece Olympic Stadium. Those who touched the qualification mark of 63.00m or the best 12 make it to the final round to be held tomorrow.

Poonia began with a foul throw but regained her composure to hurl the one-kg discus to 63.54m to finish fifth in Group A and eighth overall.

Antil had a best effort of 61.91m, which she came up in her third and final throw, to finish 13th and missed the final round.

Commonwealth Games gold medallist Poonia thus became only the sixth Indian to make it to the final round of track and field events in Olympics after Milkha Singh, P T Usha, S Sriram, Gurbachan Singh Randhawa and Anju Bobby George.

The seven throwers ahead of Poonia in the qualification round were 2008 Beijing Olympics silver medallist Yarelys Barrios (65.94m) of Cuba, Nadine Muller (65.89m) of Germany, European champion Sandra Perkovic (65.74m) of Croatia, Darya Pishchalnikova (65.02m) of Russia, defending champion Stephanie Brown Trafton (64.89m) of United States, reigning world champion Li Yanfeng (64.48m) of China and former world champion Dani Samuels (63.97m) of Australia.

Poonia has a personal as well as season's best of 64.76m, also a national record which she set in May at Hawaii in United States.