Kochi: Athletes from Kerala State put up an improved display on the second day of the 25th National Inter-Zonal Junior Athletics championships here at Maharaja College Stadium. Although she did not win the event, Lekha Unni from host state was among the three athletes who bettered the previous meet mark in 1,000m for girls’ under-16 division. Hailing from Mercy Kuttan Academy, the 14-year-old Lekha finished third with a time of 2:55.16, her personal best for the event.
“We believe in gradual improvement” a smiling Mercy told after the race when asking about her ward’s chance in the future competitions.
Nitu Kumari of Jharkhand and Durga Deore from Maharashtra, who took the gold and silver medals in the above event clocking 2:54.48 and 2:54.90 respectively along with Lekha improved the previous meet record set by Mahrashtrian Anjana Thamke (3:01.43) at Pune last year.
Meanwhile, two other athletes representing Maharashtra have entered the record books
as Sumit Kumar Jaiswal (400m hurdles) and Amolak Singh (Octathlon) won their event in youth boys’ category. Jaiswal, who represented India at the World Youth Championships in Donetsk (Ukraine), clocked a PB of 53.81 secs to win the400m hurdles that improved state-mate Satish S. Pasala’s last year performance by 0.05 secs.
Kerala’s Jithin Paul timed a much impressive 52.6 secs during the 19th edition of the Inter-Zone meet at Guntur six years ago. However in events up to 400m distance, only performances registered by fully automatic time-keeping equipment will be eligible for record purposes and hence his performance was not considered.
Amolak Singh, who hails from Punjab but represents Maharashtra, has made a gallant effort to better his Army Sports Institute teammate Dileep Kumar’s national record in the eight-event Octathlon. However he was just 45 points short while tabulating 5763 points at the end. However he had the satisfaction of erasing the previous meet mark held in the name of Kerala’s Arun S. Kumar by a good margin of 305 points. Incidentally the winner of Junior Men’s decathlon event, Baljinder Singh, also belongs to ASI Pune.
Young Tamil Nadu athlete R. Naveen made it a double by adding the 600m gold to his 100m victory earlier. Naveen, missed the national mark yesterday when taking the sprint title by just three hundredth of a second, went on shatter Haryana boy Puneet Chauhan’s meet and national record (1:24.54) as he ran an all-out start to finish race this morning in 1 minute 23.22 secs. Teammate U. Bharath (1:26.14) and Assam boy Santosh Bhagat (1:28.87) takes the other two positions behind the winner.
Tamil Nadu continued to lead the points table while Maharashtra and Kerala occupied the next two spots at the end of day 2.