Mangaluru: On Sunday morning, two times national junior champion Maniram Patel, representing Gujarat here, finally realised his dream of winning a gold medal in the Federation Cup as he race walked to 20 km in 1:29:51 to accomplish it. Having won a bronze medal in 2012 at Patiala, Maniram finished outside the podium in subsequent two editions held at the same venue. It was indeed his second national title in senior grade after his victory in Inter-State championships at Bangalore, four years ago. Kuldeep Singh (Tata Motors) came second in 1:31:04, nine seconds faster than the bronze medalist Ankit Kumar of Indian Navy.


The penultimate day of 19th Federation Cup at Mangala Stadium here witnessed two steeplechasers make the cut for the Asian championships as Incheon Asian Games bronze medalist Naveen Kumar logged horn with his Army teammate Jaiveer Singh for the top spot. Tamil Nadu’s former national champion Ramadas Ramachandran, who was missing in action for quite some time, did the front running at the initial stages before allowing the duo to takes charge. Jaiveer sprinted to win at the end, leaving Naveen yards behind, in 8:48.56. It was indeed a sweet revenge for Jaiveer, who after winning two back to back gold in 2012 and 2013, lost the gold to Naveen last year.


Both Jaiveer and Naveen (8:49.38) were well within the AFI norm of 8:49.95 to join the Indian squad to China. Maharashtra’s Sachin took the bronze in 8:58.13 while Ramachandran finished a close fourth in 9:01.78.


Haryana girl Preeti Lamba had won her maiden national title in women’s 3000m steeplechase in 10:48.86. Earlier on the opening day she won a bronze medal in 5000m. Pre-race favourite Nandini Gupta of Uttar Pradesh settled with a silver (10:58.76) while Tamil Nadu got a bronze medal through S. Padmavathy (11:30.50).


Neeraj Kumar of Indian Navy and Ritu Dhiman of Uttar Pradesh had won the hammer throw golds for men (64.53m) and women (58.30m) sections respectively. Gunjan Singh, the top seed among the women throwers, missed a medal this time and finished fourth at 53.93m.


Tamil Nadu’s Jayaraj Preeth clinched the gold in pole vault by scaling 4.90m, ahead of local lad P. Balakrishna and Krishna Prasath (Tata Motors). Both cleared 4.80m for silver and bronze medals.


In two events where Asian qualifications are expected today, men’s high jump and women’s triple jump, returned with disappointing performances.


N.V. Sheena of Kerala, this year’s National Games winner with a leap of 13.27m, could manage 12.92m only in triple jump this evening. Similarly the hosts Karnataka’s main hope Harshith Sashidhar, credited with a PB of 2.17m, did clear only 2.13m in the high jump.


There is a tie for silver medal as Suprith Raj of Karnataka and C Srineesh of Army declared joint-holders of second place, while Kerala boy Sreenith Mohan—also with an identical 2.09m—ranked fourth due to more number of failures at the earlier heights.


Hosts Karnataka continued to lead the points table with 84.5 points. Army (68.5 pts), Kerala (60) and defending champions Tamil Nadu (53) are remaining in the same positions as yesterday.