Machettira Raju Poovamma - easy winner of the 400m (© c)
Haryana’s Sudhir Kumar improved the national youth Long Jump best with a leap of 7.33m on the final day of 23rd national inter-state junior championships which concluded in the IGMC Stadium on Tuesday (27 Nov) evening.
Kumar bettered the eight-year old mark of 7.32m, on his fourth jump of the day, the lone national best set in the four-day meet.
However, as many as 10 meet records have been bettered or equalled during the championships, which served as Trials for the Indian team which will take part in the inaugural South Asian junior championships scheduled to be held at Colombo, Sri Lanka, on 29 - 30 November.
The state of Kerala once again dominated the scene. Athletes from that state went on in a record-spree. In the junior men's category, Shejil Verghese eclipsed the meet mark in the 400m Hurdles (52.51 secs). He went on to win the 400m flat.
Two more wonderful hurdlers from the same state were identified in the under-18 age-group in Akhil Krishnan and K.V. Sajitha. While Krishnan clocked 14.38 in 110m Hurdles for boys, Sajitha registered 1:04.24 in 400m Hurdles for girls.
P.T. Usha’s prodigy Tintu Luka accounted for the fourth record in junior women 800m (2:09.92). She also won the 400m, while her team-mate Mayookha Johnny also doubled with victories in the Long and Triple Jumps.
Kishan Kumar Patel (Uttar Pradesh) propelled the javelin to a new distance of 67.70m in the Youth boys category. Arjun Kumar of Delhi emerged as a champion in U16 Discus Throw with his 51.34m release.
Punjab’s 17-year-old bravo Manpreet Kaur took the junior women’s crown in the Shot Put, tossing 13.83m to rewrite the record books.
Tamil Nadu’s L. Suriya had a distance double with gold medals from 1500 and 3000m among the youth girls. The U16 girls’ showed some promise through Karnataka’s Nirupama Sundarraj, who equalled the meet mark in the 100m with a time of 12.55 secs, and R. Kowsalya (Tamil Nadu), the bronze medallist in the dash went on to win the 100m Hurdles in a noteworthy 15.08 secs.
Machettira Raju Poovamma, representing Karnataka State, had an easy win in her favourite 400m. She clocked 55.71 secs for the gold medal in the U-18 event. Poovamma along with Sudhir Kumar are obvious candidates for next year's World Junior Championships to be held at Bydgoszcz, Poland.
Ram. Murali Krishnan for the IAAF
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