Saurabh Vij (IND) (© Ram. Murali Krishnan)
Ace shot putter Saurabh Vij tossed the 6 kg iron ball to 20.35m, a new national record, at the 5th Federation Cup Junior Athletics Meet. The three day meet, sponsored by Indian Oil, concluded here this evening (17 June) at the magnificient Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium with Vij's marvellous throw.
Vij expressed his medal aspirations in the forthcoming Asian and World Junior Championships --both scheduled to be held in China later this year and considered as a potential talent searching event ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. The Indian junior was ranked second behind Hungary's Lajos Kurthy (20.55 to 20.20) last year. With today's performance he has become the world leader among the juniors in this season, pushing the Egyptian Mostafa Abdul El-Moaty to second place. Earlier Abdul El-Moaty was credited with a 20.28 mark.
Another athlete who improved the national mark was Virender Kumar Pankaj of Uttar Pradesh in the junior men's 400m in which he clocked 47.16 secs. The previous mark was held by V.B. Bineesh of Kerala with 47.51 secs.
Bengal's Jhuma Khatun once again proved her mettle by taking a double gold in junior women's 800 and 1500 bettering meet records.
Meet records were also set by Sajeesh Joseph (800m), P. Trinath (1500m), N. Vadivelu (Pole Vault), Vinod Raj (Triple Jump) and Bhupinder Singh (Decathlon) among junior men and Shilpa Sunder in heptathlon for junior women.
Besides Jhuma Khatun the other athletes who took a 'double' each are Arvind Kumar Yadav (5000 and 10,000 for junior men) and Sangeeta Yadav (3000 and 5000 for junior women).
As expected the sporting state of Kerala took the overall honours in the meet by garnering 197.5 points. Uttar Pradesh (113) and hosts Tamil Nadu (106) were second and third.
Walter Issac Davaram, President of Tamil Nadu Athletic Association, presented the trophies and prizes to the winners.
Ram. Murali Krishnan for the IAAF
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