Dutee Chand sets national 100m record

GUWAHATI: Dutee Chand broke her national 100m mark on the final day of the Inter State Athletics Championships here on Friday. The sprinter clocked 11.29 secs in the semi-finals to slice one-hundredth of a second from her previous mark before winning the final in 11.32 secs, way ahead of the Jakarta Asian Games qualifying mark of 11.67 secs.

Upstaged by teenager Hima Das in the longer sprint, Dutee’s coach N Ramesh blamed afternoon rain for her unsuccessful bid to further lower the national record. She has also qualified in the 200m though she is expected to focus on the shorter sprint.

Four athletes, Hima (sprints), Jinson Johnson (middle distance), Sanjeevani Jadhav and G Lakshmanan (both long distance) completed a double on the final of competition at the Indira Gandhi Stadium. The final day featured 13 events, with 10 ath- letes achieving the Games norm.

The women’s 400m generated lot of interest as local runner Hima was a strong contender. She ran a brilliant race to edge out favourite Nirmala Sheoran, with a meet record to boot.

Hima clocked 51.13 secs, a personal best. The meet record was 51.48 secs. Nirmala finished second at 51.26 secs but both achieved the Games norm of 52.47 secs. In men’s 1500m, Jinson Johnson, who broke the 42-yearold 800m national record in 800m, won in 3:45.12 secs, just off the qualifying norm of 3:45 secs. He had already qualified for the Games due to his 800m time.

In women’s 1500m, the top four dipped under the Games qualifying mark of 4:16.38 secs, with PU Chitra winning in 4:11.55 secs. After winning the women’s 5000m and qualifying, Maharashtra’s Sanjeevani won the 10,000m too. G Lakshmanan won the 10,000m in 29:16.23 secs. Hima Das and Aprinder Singh were declared best athletes of the meet.