Patiala: The final day’s proceedings commenced with a successful title defence in half-marathon by Borase Datta of Pune varsity in 1 hour 8 minutes 33 seconds. The next two places went to Harish Ram and Mukesh Kumar from Punjabi University.

In the women’s race Nagpur’s Rohini Raut emulated her elder sister and last year’s winner Mohini Raut by taking the title in 1 hr 19 min 42 secs. Harpreet Kaur (Punjabi varsity) and M.D. Thara (Calicut) were the other two podium finishers.

Two athletes won their second gold of the meet on the final day of the championships. Manjeet Singh (Punjabi), who earlier won the 800m, added the 1500m on Saturday. 400m hurdles winner Anu Raghavan (Calicut) also had a surprise victory in 200m (25.12 secs) today. Anna University’s Archana Suseendran, the double gold medallist in South Asian junior championship and a favourite to win the event, finished third in 25.45 behind Anilda Thomas of Mahatma Gandhi University (Kottayam) who clocked 25.13 secs for the silver.

Incidentally Anilda Thomas shared the “Best Athlete” award with 100m winner Dutee Chand while the honour in men’s section went to shot putter Tejinderpal Singh of Punjabi University.

Chennai athletes P. Deepika (100m hurdles) and R. Sudarsan (110m hurdles) were the other notable winners on the concluding day. Deepika represented the University of Madras while Sudarsan hails from Anna University. Interestingly there was a “change of colour” in the victors’ position. G. Gayathri of Anna University and J. Surendar of Madras were the winners last year.

Hosts Punjabi University successfully retained overall and men’s honours while the women’s trophy went to Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam.