Bangalore: Two athletes delivered eye-catching performances while retained their titles from last year’s championship in 800m.
Maharashtra half-miler Mandeep Goyat ran a well calculated race to win the boys’ event clocking 1:52.66, a time that erased the meet and national mark of 1:53.08 by Uttaranchal’s Pankaj Dimri from the record books. It was indeed a big improvement for Mandeep from his last year’s show in
Ranchi where he timed 1:58.46 for the gold. The Maharashtrian led the race right from the beginning. Delhi boy Arjun Khokhar (1:55.54) and Punjab’s Gurjant Singh (1:56.05) came second and third respectively.
The girls’ race also witnessed another champion from Ranchi, Jessy Joseph, to successfully defend her title with a meet record 2:10.72. Jessy, another prodigy of P.T. Usha, proved too good to the rest of the field as she did front running throughout the race to remove Bengal athlete Jhuma Khatun’s meet mark of 2:11.30 from the lists. Like Mandeep, Jessy also showed a marked improvement from her last year’s performance as her previous title came with a time of 2:15.85.
Haryana girl Nirmala (2:17.23) and Karnataka’s K.A. Archana (2:23.68) claimed silver and bronze medals in the above race.
Orissa’s Ashman Sahu easily won the triple jump for boys with a commendable 15m leap while the girls’ event witnessed a sea-saw battle and eventually won by Kerala’s Jenimol Joy with a last round 12.42m from unheralded Bhairabi Roy of West Bengal who till that point led the event
with her 12.35m second round mark. TN jumper M.A. Siva Anbarasi, retained the bronze position from Ranchi by registered a personal best 12.19m.
Earlier in the morning Karan Rathi helped the Haryana tradition alive in the race walking as he extends the state’s winning-streak in the boys’ 10K in a modest 49:48.70. U.P. girl Priyanka took the 5K title in 27:16.25.
Kerala avenged her defeat to Haryana in the championship race last year as they took all the three trophies in offing—for boys, girls and overall. Although they had a comfortable margin in girls division, the champion state pushed Haryana to runner-up position with a mere half-point in the
boys’ section.
Bengal sprinter Dutee Chand, who had a sprint double and a national youth record in 100m, adjusted best athlete among girls while the honour went to Maharashtra’s 400m hurdler Satish Pasala in the boys.
Indian Sports News Network