Patiala: Athletes from hosts Punjabi University had a profitable day as they garnered as much as four gold medals in the ongoing 74th All India Inter-University Athletics Championships here on Christmas day.
Unheralded Gurlal Singh pulled a stunner as he clocked an impressive 10.76 secs and adjudged the fastest man of the meet title for Punjabi University. Pre-race favourite Hasandeep Singh (Panjab University) finished third in 10.95 secs due to groin injury while M.G. University’s Anuroop John settled with a silver medal in 10.90s. The second gold for the hosts came from shot putter Tejinderpal Singh who, in spite of missing the meet mark by just 17 cm, took the gold with a heave of a personal best 18.54m. It was indeed a proud moment for Tejinder as he improved his silver position from the last edition held at Kalyani. Teammate Navtejdeep Singh (17.55m) and Panjab’s Gagandeep Singh (16.70m) were the other medallists in this event.
Half-miler Manjeet Singh, fourth in this year’s Asian championships at Pune, brought the third gold for Punjabi University with a modest 1:52.73 to win the 800m while woman hammer thrower sent out the ball and chain to a new distance of 53.86m to win the hammer throw.
Earlier national champion Annu Rani, representing Chaudhary Charan Singh University of Meerut, eclipsed the meet mark in women’s javelin throw by sent the spear to 52.64m that removed Sanjo Devi’s seven-year-old 51.69m from the books. In that process Annu Rani successfully defends her title from the previous edition held at Kalyani last year.
International Dutee Chand (K.I.I.T. University, Bhubaneswar) ran her slowest 100m race of the year when taking the women’s crown in 12.04 secs.
Mohamad Imran Arafath (Madurai Kamaraj, 47.70s) and Anilda Thomas (M.G. University, 55.71s) took the 400m flat while Binu Aquito (Madras, 53.21s) and Anu Raghavan (Calicut, 61.25s) crowned 400m hurdles for men and women divisions respectively. Incidentally Anu was the second athlete to defend the title from last year.
Lucknow varsity’s Pramila Yadav in 800m (2:12.75) and Anna University’s M. Vigneshwar in long jump (7.30m) were the other winners of the day.