Two national records and an equal number of epic races were scripted the opening session of 32nd National Junior Athletics championships at Nehru Stadium here on Thursday morning.
Gavit Murli Kumar, who hails from a tribal village named Saputara in the hilly forest area on Western Ghats in Gujarat, is already an established athlete after his bronze medal at Asian junior athletics championships earlier this year at Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. He was spotted by a local coach when he noticed Murli running on the roads regularly in order to gain an entry in to the Armed forces. The boy took the suggestion of taking up athletics as per his advice and joined a training camp run by Sports Authority of India. Spotting his talent the SAI recruited him for the Elite Distance Running Program jointly run by them along with Procam International, the Mumbai based sports promoters, and Global Sports Communication—a Holland based sports management establishment.
Then Murli was able to train in Kenya’s Rift Valley in Item together with champion athletes and led by former world record-holder Wilson Kipsang. That training paid its dividends and Murli is now all set to take a prominent place in distance running in India. This morning at Coimbatore, he ran a well calculated race to win the 5,000m for junior men (U20) in 14:40.69 to successfully defend his title from Ranchi. Today’s time was marginally slower than the 14:40.30 he clocked in Patiala during the junior SAF meet trials hardly six weeks ago. Mohan Saini (Uttarakhand, 14:43.69) and Vijay Rathee (Haryana, 14:47.66) filled the other two spots on the podium.
Few minutes earlier the women’s race saw Sudha Pal (Uttar Pradesh) won the event in a modest 17:49.46 ahead of teammate Kavita Yadav (17:52.78) and Assam girl Jyoti (17:59.61). Sudha, the national junior cross-country champion, posted a personal best 17:20.62 while finishing sixth in the national open athletics championship at Lucknow this September.
U16 throwers erased national marks:
Two national marks came from the throwing field. The first one was recorded by Haryana lad Sahil Silwal as hurled the disc to 53.96m that removed his state-mate Abhay Gupta’s one year old mark of 53.02m. Teammate Sourabh (52.65m) and Himachal’s Ajay (52.50m) took the silver and bronze medals respectively.
Punjab’s Paramjor Kaur, who finished sixth in discus throw in World Schools Gymnasiade at Trabzon (Turkey) four months ago, established the second national mark of the day in shot put. Paramjot heaved the 3 kg iron ball nearly 1 metre more than the existing mark of Meghana Devanga (13.28m) with her amazing throw of 14.21m. It was indeed a great improvement for the Punjab thrower as she tossed just 12.88m to win the event at Ranchi, last year. Meghana, the Asian Schools champion from 2013, is currently participating in U20 division here.
In other events, Kerala high jumper Gayathry Sivakumar, who won U14 gold medals back to back in 2013 and 2014 claimed her third today in the U16 age category by clearing a height of 1.67m. Haryana’s Rubina Yadav was a close second in 1.65m. Hosts Tamil Nadu got their first medal through G Giji, as she took bronze with a height of 1.61m.
