Haridwar: The much-anticipated 12th National Inter-District Junior Athletics Meet got off to a sizzling start here on Friday with finals of three events out of a total of 30 event in the meet being decided on day one.

Pooja of Kaithal district in Haryana stole the show, taking the first position in the finals of the 600m event for girls in the under-14 category. The talented teenager from Kaithal clocked 1:45.49 to finish ahead of Rudraprayag district’s Gauri, who finished second with a timing of 1:46.04. North Delhi district’s Ankita Chahal took third position with a timing of 1:46.05.

In the boys under-14 600m event finals, North Delhi’s Akshay Nain took the top honours with a timing of 1:30.90 while Ghaziabad (UP) district’s Himanshu Tomar was second, clocking 1:31.61 and Hisar (Haryana) district’s Monu took the third position with a timing of 1:31.97.

Interestingly, in the girls under-16 javelin throw event, Sundergarh district of Odisha which is one of the most popular nursery for hockey in the country, received a great boost for athletics as Carmela Barla finished first with a throw of 30.79 metres. In second place stood the Kaithal girl Pooja, who clinched the under-14 600m title earlier in the day. She hurled the javelin to a maximum of 28.54 metres to take home her second medal in this meet. Bhagalpur (Bihar) district’s Minu Soren finished in third position, landing the javelin at 27.11 metres.

The first day of the NID-JAM didn’t witness any new meet record, but the action has just begun and coaches and AFI technical delegates expect quite a few meet record to be broken in the remaining two days.

Earlier, the 12th edition of the NID-JAM was inaugurated and declared open by the Hon’ble Sports Minister of Uttarakhand Mr Dinesh Aggarwal. Mr Aggarwal lauded the efforts of the Athletics Federation of India for promoting athletics across the country and promoting talent in the districts across India. He said, “I congratulate AFI for conducting such a unique meet where talented youngsters from all the districts compete with their peers from other states. The state of Uttarakhand is proud to host the meet and we welcome all the 3,500 participants from 260 districts. We hope they will enjoy their visit to the state and return home as brand ambassador for Uttarakhand.”