Vijayawada: Distance runner P.U. Chitra completes a grand double. Chitra, who won the 1500m gold on the opening day, added another in junior women’s 3000m race today with a new meet record 9:56.92. It was the second such double for the Kerala runner in the Junior Nationals as she annexed 800-1500m titles in the last edition held at Bangalore.

Asian junior silver medalist Sharwan Kharb of Haryana took the junior men’s 10000m honours clocking 30:57.43 for another distance double.

Earlier he had won the 5000m. Uttar Pradesh’s Parul Chaudhray, hails from the favourite stable for steeplechasers, as expectantly improved the national mark in junior women’s 3000m steeplechase with a time of 11:04.80. The above event, introduced in the junior nationals at Vijayawada, was first held during the Junior Federation Cup at Chennai this May where Kerala’s M.P. Safeeda scripted the previous mark of 11:34.62. At the beginning of this month Parul clocked a much superior 10:44.38 during her third place finish at the Open Nationals in Delhi.

U.P. athletes also dominated the other three steeple races contested today through Haribaksh Singh (6:05.47) and Khushbu Gupta (7:25.19), winners in 2000m steeplechase for youth boys and girls divisions respectively. Umesh Kumar completes the collection in junior men’s 3000m steeple event in 9:20.63, nearer to M. Naresh’s meeting record 9:18.19 from 2012.
Shot putter Anamika Das heaved the iron ball to 13.01m, which was very close to Meghana Devanga’s national and meet mark of 13.28m, in the girls u-16 category.

Athletes from Kerala also dominated in number of other events. Athira Muralidhran annexed the junior women’s hammer throw gold by set out the ball and chain to 48.09, eight years after Anitha Abraham achieved it in otherwise regular terrain of the athletes from the northern states.
Kerala sprinters grab four out six 200m finals contested in the evening. Reigning champion Jisna Mathew successfully retained her 200m crown to add it to her 400m win earlier that fetch her the Best Athlete title in the girls u-16 division.

Asian junior silver medalist Jessy Joseph won her third successive 800m gold in junior nationals. After winning two back to back youth titles in the last two years she adjudged her first junior women’s crown in her slowest winning time of the year – 2:10.18 – at Vijayawada, yet enough to get her the Best Athlete award!

Haryana javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, record-holder in u-16 age group, etched his name in the youth boys category too as he hurled the spear to an Indian best 76.50m. Neeraj already represented India in the World Youth Championships at Donetsk, last year.

Team Kerala won the overall championship for the third successive time with 528.5 points. Haryana, which temporarily put a stop to Kerala’s unbeaten 14 year run since 1998 during the 2011 junior nationals at Ranchi, once again finished runners-up with 394 points. However the northern state took the boys’ trophy with 289 points ahead of Uttar Pradesh (181). Kerala retained the girls’ trophy with 361 points while Tamil Nadu got the second spot in 222 points.

The following athletes have been adjudged “Best Athletes” in their respective age-groups:

BOYS:

U-14: Satyawan (Telangana) Shot Put – 856 points
U-16: Alden Anil Naik (Maharashtra) 100m Hurdles – 1108 points
U-18: Shakti Solanki (Delhi) Shot Put – 1133 points
U-20: Sreenith Mohan (Kerala) High Jump – 1072 points

GIRLS:

U-14: Aswathy Binu (Kerala) 600m – 845 points
U-16: Jisna Mathew (Kerala) 400m – 986 points
U-18: Reshmi P. Sheri (Maharashtra) 100m – 982 points
U-20: Jessy Joseph (Kerala) 800m