After battling her nerves to clear 1.88m on her third and last attempt, high jumper Sahana Kumari soared over the bar set at 1.92m on her first try to join the Indian squad for the London Olympics on the opening day of the 52nd National Inter-State athletics at Hyderabad on Saturday.
According to a Times Of India report, the effort not only booked her the London ticket but also got Sahana the national record and meet record. The previous national markwas1.91m set by Bobby Aloysius set in Chennai in 2002. After missing the B mark (1.92) at the Asian GP series in May, when she got stuck at 1.89m, Sahana reaped the rewards of her hard work and determination as she cleared the qualification height with some more to spare at the GMC Balayogi stadium.
Meanwhile another TOI report says that the fastest man of the meet Dharambir immediately ran into controversy when he disappeared after beating the big names in the 100m final. The Haryana athlete clocked 10.51 seconds to push Md Abdul Qureshi of AP (10.59s) and Krishan Kumar of Maharashtra (10.60s). Apparently, Dharambir, who was not in the camp in Bangalore, didn’t figure in NADA’s list of athletes to be randomly tested.
A Hindu report says that the 31-year-old Sahana gave full credit to her coach N. Evgeny of Ukraine. She added that she had been confident of achieving the mark but was frustrated at the long delay in starting the event.
Twenty-four-year-old Dharambir of Haryana and Satti Geeta of Andhra Pradesh emerged as the fastest man and woman respectively but with many top level athletes missing from the fray here, the first day’s proceedings were expectedly lacklustre.
This was considerably outside the meet record of 10.36s and National record of 10.30s both held by Anil Kumar. This was Dharambir's first victory in a major meet.
Quereshi who had equalled the National record two years earlier had a poor day. His start was a trifle slow and it enabled the unheralded Dharambir to get the upper hand.
Olympian Satti Geeta kept the home crowd in good humour by winning the women’s 100 metres. She was out of the blocks in a flash and charged into an early lead which she maintained all the way to the finish.
