G. Gayathri of Tamil Nadu (© SportyIndia.com)
Athletes from Kerala state successfully defended their hold on the overall championship by bagging 36 gold medals at the 24th National Junior Championships held at Mysore (12-16 Nov).
The Chamundi Vihar Stadium, the regular venue for the annual Dasara Games, witnessed an array of national bests from athletes belonging to under-18 (youth) age-group.
Govindaraj Gayathri, fresh from two silver medals in the recently concluded Commonwealth Youth Games (CYG) at Pune, clocked an impressive 14.02 secs in 100m Hurdles at the Nationals besides equalling the national best in the Triple Jump (12.78m) held by her club-mate Krishnan Revathy, herself a CYG silver medalist four years ago at Bendigo, Australia. Gayathri had a better show (14 secs flat and 12.89m) at Pune.
Maharashtra’s Saba Bhagat has delivered an equally good performance while competing in the Boys’ (U-18) 110m Hurdles event with a youth best time of 14.06 secs. In the same age-group, Rohit Kumar from Uttar Pradesh hurled the Javelin to a new distance of 71.52m, a performance which his team mate Krishnanad Tripathi pegged for the gold at Pune where Kumar sent out the spear to 67.60m for the silver medal.
Gayathri and Saba Bhagat were adjudged as best athletes in their respective divisions. Kerala’s Jithin Paul and Tintu Luka received similar awards among the junior women and junior men categories respectively. Luka, a prodigy of legendary Indian athlete P.T. Usha, had a 400-800 double with a 2:07.48 meet record in the latter.
Ram. Murali Krishnan for the IAAF
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