Women eclipse records in Indian GP

Two women, Manjeet Kaur and Seema Antil turned out with lot of enthusiasm and obliterated two national marks at the third leg of the Indian national Grand Prix circuit at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium today.

 

 

Manjeet Kaur (22), silver medallist in Asian junior meet at Brunei (2001) ran a splendid race to lower the four year old national mark in the women's 400m race to 51.05, followed by Chitra K. Soman with 51.30 and Rajwinder Kaur in 51.57. The first two athletes home achieved the individual A qualifying mark for Athens.

Former national record holder and Sydney Olympics semi-finalist K.M. Beenamol finished fourth at 51.59, great for an athlete who has just recovered from the injuries and started competing only in the past three months.

 

For the first time in Indian history four women dipped under 52 seconds, as the nation tries to earn a slot in the 4x400m relay event for the Athens Olympics. 

 

Successful Discus assault
 

World Junior bronze medallist Seema Antil made a successful assault on the women's Discus record with a remarkable 64.64m. Having already achieved the A standard in this event, all three women athletes who competed the event today produced a keen contest.

The Busan Asian Games gold medallist and World Championship finalist, Neelam Jaswant Singh could manage only 61.40m for second place, followed by Punjab's Harwant Kaur who threw a modest 58.84m.

 

 

Another woman athlete who dominated the scene today was Combined Event specialist J.J. Shobha. The new national record holder in Heptathlon has already reserved her berth for the Olympic Games with 6211 points in the Federation Cup athletic meet held at New Delhi last March, and today took two wins - the 100m Hurdles and Long Jump events.

  

J. J. Shobha, who returned with a decent 6.62 Long Jump mark from Kharkov (Ukraine) last week, hit the sand at 6.44m on her first attempt but fouled the second.  She improved her PB to 6.63 with her third try but failed in her fourth and fifth attempts before reaching for 6.66m in the last jump. She thus missed the Athens "A "grade by a mere 4 cms to qualify as the second Indian competitor behind Anju Bobby George, the bronze medallist in Worlds.

 

Unlike the women, the men's events could not produce any real performance of class and lack of entries forced the organisers to cancel the 800m and 4x400m relay events for both men and women.

 

In the absence of K.M. Binu, Bhupinder Singh took the men's quarter mile in 45.89.

 

A national "select" team comprising B.G.Nagaraj, Sreenivas, Arshad Hussain and Sandeep Sarkaria posted 40.01 for men's 4x100m relay.

 

Results:

Men:

100m (-1.7):
1. Sandeep Sarkaria (ONGC) 10.46; 2. Piyush Kumar (Rly) 10.47; 3. Vilas Neelgund (Kar) 10.63;

 

200m (+0.2):
1. P. Anil Kumar (Ker) 20.94; 2. Piyush Kumar (Rly) 21.20; 3. H. Jayachandran (LIC) 21.21;

 

400m:
Race-A: 1. Bhupinder Singh (Pun) 45.89; 2. P. Ramachandran (TN) 46.22; 3. K.J. Manojlal (Ker) 46.26;
Race-B: 1. P.S. Primesh (Ker) 48.55; 2. Shiv Pratap 49.58; 3. Lokesh Fauzdar (Raj) 50.36;

 

Long Jump:
1. Sanjay Kumar Rai (Rly) 7.58/+0.5; 2. Rajeev Kumar (CRPF) 7.56/+0.7; 3. Ashok Kumar (TN) 7.54/-0.1;

 

Triple Jump:
1. Amarjeet Singh (Pun) 16.25/+2.5; 2. Diogo (ONGC) 14.88/+1.1; 3. K. Saintison (Ser) 14.31/-0.5;

 

Shot Put:
1. Shakti Singh (Rly) 19.64; 2. Bahadur Singh Sagoo (Pun) 19.45; 3. Ranvijay Singh (UP) 18.69;

 

Hammer Throw:
1. Kulwinder Singh (Pol) 61.95; 2. Nirbhay Singh (Ser) 59.69 (only 2 competitors);

 

Javelin Throw:
1. Jagdish Bishnoi (Pol) 74.12; 2. Gajendra Kumar (UP) 72.83; 3. Lijesh Kumar (Ser) 71.70;

 

Women:
200m (-1.1):
1. Saraswati Saha (Ben) 23.75; 2. Soma Biswas (Ben) 24.41; 3. H.M. Jyothi (Kar) 25.65;

 

400m:
1. Manjeet Kaur (Pun) 51.05 (National Record); 2. Chitra K. Soman (Ker) 51.30; 3. Rajwinder Kaur (Pun) 51.57;

 

100m Hurdles (0.0):
1. J.J. Shobha (AP) 13.69; 2. K.N. Priya (TN) 13.99; 3. G.G. Pramila (Kar) 14.07;

 

High Jump:
1. Sahana Kumari (Kar) 1.79; 2. A. Amudha (TN) 1.70 (only 2 competitors);

 

Long Jump:
1. J.J. Shobha (AP) 6.66/0.0; 2. G.G. Pramila (Kar) 6.39/+0.6; 3. Kalpana Das (Rly) 5.96/+0.7;

 

Discus Throw:
1. Seema Antil (Har) 64.64; 2. Neelam J. Singh (Rly) 61.40; 3. Harwant Kaur (Pun) 58.84;