UP’s Rohit wins javelin gold, Anmol, Robin and Sivani claim silver medals
LUCKNOW: Young thrower Rohit Yadav on Tuesday helped Uttar Pradesh continue their dominance in the inaugural National U23 Athletics Championships, winning gold medal, at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in New Delhi.
Jaunpur’s Yadav, was in doping trouble a couple of years ago, threw the iron rod to distance of 72.42 metre to finish top. In 2019, Yadav had set up new national record in under-18 nationals with a preliminary round throw of 81.75m.
On Tuesday, another Uttar Pradesh thrower Anmol Rana with a throw of 71.17 metre won a silver medal, whereas Rajasthan’s Anuj Kalera (68.73m) walked away with bronze medal.
Before Akash Grewal could win first bronze medal on Day Two for Uttar Pradesh, hurling the iron ball to a distance of 17.03 metre in shot put event, Robin Singh bagged a silver medal in decathlon with 6636 points.
In the girls discus throw, Shivani (46.25m) and Neetika Verma (44.77m) finished with silver and bronze medals, respectively.
Munita Prajapati won the third and final bronze medal for Uttar Pradesh, finishing third in the girls 20000m walk race, clocking 1:46:20.57 sec.
Earlier, Dandi Jyothika Sri (Andhra Pradesh) and Ayush Dabas (Haryana) turned in fine performances to win the women and men’s 400m with personal best times.
It placed them as the second and fifth fastest Indian quartermilers respectively this year.
Jyothika Sri, keen to overcome memories of a disqualification in the National Open Athletics Championships in Warangal a fortnight ago, carried a confidence to the track.
Once Kiran Pahal chose to not run in the meet, Jyothika Sri’s key rivals were Nancy (Haryana) and Florence Barla (Jharkhand). Her pace was such that they were left to fight for the second place.
Jyothika Sri, who hails from Tanuku in Andhra Pradesh but trains in Hyderabad, won in 53.05 seconds. It was an improvement on her previous best of 54.70.
It was also the fastest time by an Indian woman on Indian soil this year, going past MR Poovamma’s 53.45 and was only the second fastest after the 52.77 that Priya H Mohan clocked in the World U20 Championships.
Similarly, Ayush Dabas was on top of his game in the men’s final. He bested Haryana teammate Vikrant Panchal by half a second.
His time of 46.58 seconds catapulted him ahead of Vikrant Panchal, who had clocked 46.83 in winning the 400m in the National InterState Championships on June 28, into India’s top five quartermilers this year.
VA Shashikanth (Karnataka) and Taranjeet Kaur (Delhi) won the right to be called the fastest man and woman of the meet by winning the 100m races in contrasting styles.
Shashikanth had to overcome a poor start to catch up with Maharashtra’s Pranav Gurav with about 20 metres left for the finish. Taranjeet Singh score a pretty straightforward win in the women’s final.
Tamil Nadu’s Sherin Abdul Gaffoor dominated the women’s Long Jump in the evening, making the most of the pit conditions to keep taking her personal best from 6.32m achieved in January 2020 with a series of jumps in keeping with her recent consistency. She first improved to 6.35 with her third try, increased it by a couple of centimeters on her next attempt before finishing the event with a massive 6.45 effort.