Harishankar Roy (India) jumping in Chennai (© Krishnan)
Inspired by the Athens qualification and national record performance of Bobby Aloysius in the women’s event on the opening day, two young athletes dominated the men's High Jump on the second day of the Indian Inter-State National Championships yesterday (19 July).
18 year old Harishankar Roy of Bengal and the host state's 21 year old Benedict Starli were the pre-event favourites. Roy had set an unratified Indian best of 2.20m while winning the West Bengal state meet at Kolkata on 6 June, while Starli had also unofficially equalled the listed national mark of 2.17m at the Tamil Nadu Championship in Chennai on 17 June.
Yesterday they registered an identical mark of 2.18m, which will now officially be ratified as a new national record, as both their previous bests could not be recognised having been achieved at the lower key provincial championships. The previous Indian record of 2.17m was set by Chander Pal in 1993.
Starli and Roy both went on to have three failures after the bar was raised to 2.21m, with the former winning the competition at 2.18 on count-back.
Priya excelled in hurdles
Taking full advantage of the home crowd, the South Asian Games silver medallist K.N. Priya coasted to victory in 13.93 in the women’s 100m Hurdles which was however nine hundredths of a second short of her PB set in Islamabad.
Former national champion Satbir Singh, representing Haryana, had a comfortable win in the men's 400m in 46.61, from junior athletes P.Shankar (46.83) and P.S.Sreejith (47.08).
The women's 400m was won by another South Asian Games victor S.Geetha of Andhra Pradesh at 52.51 in the absence of national record holder Manjeet Kaur and another Athens qualifier Chitra K. Soman. However she managed to get some competition from Punjab's Sagardeep Kaur, who finished second at 52.79.
Both Geetha and Sagardeep will be making it in the Indian relay squad for Athens if they figured at the top-16 in the World after the cut-off date of 21 July.
Karnataka's L. Manjula won the women's 3000m Steeplechase bettering the meet mark in a time of 11:00.18. The event was introduced at the national level only at last year's championships.
As expected Kerala teams took the relay titles in both men and women 4x100m relay races clocking 41.75 and 47.43 respectively.
At the end of day two of this national meet, hosts Tamil Nadu lead the overall points tally with an aggregate 90 points, after levelling at 56 points with Kerala in the women section.
National combined events meet
The Athletics Federation of India today announced that the first national combined events competition will be held at Bangalore on 5 - 6 August 2004 in order to give the Heptathletes another chance to qualify for the Athens Olympics. J.J. Shobha already made the A grade, and is now training in the Ukrainian along with other individual event qualifiers.
Ram. Murali Krishnan for the IAAF
Results:
Men:
400m: 1. Satbir Singh (Haryana) 46.61; 2. P.Shankar (Andhra Pradesh) 46.83; 3. P.S.Sreejith (Kerala) 47.08;
110m Hurdles (2.1): 1. Gurpreet Singh (Punjab) 14.38; 2. Ranjit Singh Randhawa (Delhi) 14.42; 3. Krishna Mohan (Andhra Pradesh) 14.69;
3,000m Steeplechase: 1. Arun D'Souza (Andhra Pradesh) 8:50.71; 2. R.V.Subba (Delhi) 9:10.63; 3. Bhagwan Diwagiri (Uttar Pradesh) 9:13.23;
High Jump: 1. Harishankar Roy (West Bengal) 2.18 (National Record); 2. Benedict Starli (Tamil Nadu) 2.18 (National Record); 3. Vinod Kumar (Delhi) 2.11; 4. Anil Chahal (Uttar Pradesh) 2.11;
Decathlon: 1. P.J.Vinod (Jharkand) 7091; 2. Victor Jebasingh (Tamil Nadu) 6872; 3. Chandrasekar (Tamil Nadu) 6369;
20,000m Walk: 1. Sita Ram (Rajasthan) 1::33:33.17; 2. Gurmeet Singh (Punjab) 1::35:26.95; 3. Anil Kumar (Haryana) 1::38:05.01;
4x100m Relay: 1. Kerala (Rajesh, Girish, Jolly, Ratheesh) 41.75; 2. Delhi 41.76; 3. Tamil Nadu 41.77;
Women:
400m: 1. S.Geetha (Andhra Pradesh) 52.51; 2. Sagardeep Kaur (Punjab) 52.79; 3. Pushpa Kumari (Himachal Pradesh) 56.53;
5,000m: 1. Madhuri Gurnule (Maharashtra) 17:01.22; 2. Preeja Sreedharan (Kerala) 17:37.53; 3. Jayanti Negi (Delhi) 17:52.31;
100m Hurdles (0.7): 1. K.N.Priya (Tamil Nadu) 13.93; 2. Ruta Patkar (Maharashtra) 14.66; 3. Simi Sebastian (Kerala) 14.74;
3,000m Steeplechase: 1. L.Manjula (Karnataka) 11:00.18 (New Meet Record); 2. B.L.Bharti (Karnataka) 11:23.09; 3. Jaswinder Kaur (Punjab) 12:08.09;
Long Jump: 1. Ruta Patkar (Maharashtra) 6.16/0.8; 2. K.Revathy (Tamil Nadu) 5.81/0.2; 3. Noosheen Rajendran (Delhi) 5.80/1.0;
Discus Throw: 1. Krishna Poonia (Haryana) 57.19; 2. Saroj Sihag (Haryana) 53.50; 3. Baljeet Kaur (Punjab) 42.76;
Hammer Throw: 1. Hardeep Kaur (Punjab) 56.85; 2. Rajwinder Kaur (Punjab) 52.07; 3. Rakhee Gaud (Maharashtra) 47.42;
4x100m Relay: 1. Kerala (Dhanya Purushothaman, Sunita Varghese, Shini Rajan, V.D.Shijila) 47.43; 2. Tamil Nadu 48.35; 3. Punjab 48.94
