Guntur: The pole vault event for girls, cancelled during the last two editions of Youth Nationals for lack of entries, made a re-appearance and aptly witnessed the first meet record of the ongoing championships here.
Kerala vaulters, who dominated the scene ever-since the event was introduced in 2008, once again ruled it with Mariya Jaison taking the gold with a new height of 3.20m which eclipsed the previous mark of 2.82m held by state-mate Sinju Prakash. However Mariya could not succeed in her attempt to break Sinju’s national mark—3.30m—on Sunday.
The second day of the meet also witnessed U.P. hammer thrower Prakash Singh attained the qualifying standard for the World Youth Championships by sent out the ball and chain to 63.52m. The qualifying mark in this event stands at 63m.
However due to heat and humidity many top class athletes failed in their attempt to gain a berth on the National Team for the global youth meet to be held in Donetsk, Ukraine, in July. Also there are cases in which some athletes who had already achieved the required norm during last year’s Junior Nationals at Lucknow could not repeat their performance on the clay track in Brahmananda Reddy Stadium at Guntur.
For example the winner of the first event of the day—Shailesh Kumar from Madhya Pradesh—was almost 2 minutes slower than his Lucknow performance in boys’ 10,000m walk. Shailesh clocked 46:13.92 in Lucknow whereas he managed only 48:35.07 in Guntur.
Similarly in boys’ 110m hurdles there were at least four athletes dipped under 14.00 secs while taking part in the under-16 division at Lucknow.
Most of those athletes who made it to this evening’s final here however delivered slower timings than expected. The winner Maymon Poulose of Kerala clocked 14.71 secs for the gold whereas the qualifying standard for this event is fixed as 14.40 secs. Tamil Nadu hurdler Logeshwaran, who clocked 13.59s at Lucknow had trembled at the start here and hence finished seventh with a paltry 16.74s.
In the 400m run for boys, Haryana lad Ajay clocked 50.70 secs to win the gold in which the QM is 49.95 secs. Another TN athlete Dharun who clocked 49.56 secs at Lucknow could log only 51.44 secs for his fifth place finish today.
Ankita Gosavi of Maharashtra had won the 100m hurdles for girls with a timing of 14.80 secs but just missed the QM by 0.25 secs.
Overnight leaders Haryana continue their pole position with 104 points with Kerala managed to move in to second spot with 69 points.
