New Delhi, Feb 2:
Uttarakhand’s Anu Kumar and Haryana’s Pooja stole the limelight as they grabbed their second gold medals in the athletics events of the inaugural Khelo India School Games (KISG) here today.
Nisar Ahmad of Delhi emerged as the fastest runner despite running an all-out 100m twice in a span of 20 minutes on Day 3 of competition.
Nisar, who had to postpone his training trip to Jamaica in order to compete at the Khelo India School Games, was so focussed that he did not hear the recall whistle following a false start and he went all out in 10.77 seconds.
The race was pushed to 20 minutes later to allow the athletes time to recover.
When the final was re-scheduled Karan Hegiste of Karnataka, expected to provide Nisar a tough contest, was disqualified because of another false start.
The race finally got underway and Nisar sprinted to glory in 10.76 seconds with another Karnataka athlete V A Shashikanth second in 10.90s and Haryana’s Govind Kumar third in 10.95s.
Nisar received the gold medal from Sports Minister and Olympic silver medallist Rajyavardhan Rathore.
“I want to use this scholarship to explode the myth that Indians cannot run below 10 seconds. I had to delay my trip to Jamaica and it affected my training and will now leave tomorrow. But I am comfortable and I am happy I was able to compete and win. The first time I was so focussed that I did not hear the recall whistle,” Nisar said.
“I was expecting a challenge from Karan Hegiste, but he was unfortunately disqualified for a false start. He is also very good.”
Meanwhile, Anu became the first boys individual double gold medallist as he added the 800m gold to the 1500m he won on the first day.
He also clocked a personal best of 1:52.08, bettering his previous best of 1:53.59 by more than one and a half seconds. The previous best was set while winning a silver medal at the World School Games in France.
Another athlete to complete a golden double was Pooja of Haryana, who added the discus gold medal to the shot put she won earlier. Pooja had a best of 41.01m.
Tamil Nadu’s Ajenci Susan won the silver with a best throw of 40.43m while Uttar Pradesh’s Nikita Verma bagged the bronze with 39.27m.
In 3,000m race, Gujarat’s Makwana Vishal won the gold in 8:48.79, while Sandeep Kumar (Uttar Pradesh) bagged the silver in 8:49.52. The bronze went to Siddharth Phor of Uttarakhand in 8:53.53.
Two other impressive winners included Odisha’s Punga Soren, who ran a brilliant Heat of 14.24 in the morning only to better it in the afternoon for her 110m hurdles gold with 14.12 seconds.
Rubina Yadav of Haryana was an impressive winner in the girls’ high jump event, clearing an impressive 1.76m to push the fancied Kerala girl Gayathry who failed to clear 1.70m and finished with the silver.
Maharashtra’s Tai Bamhane (girls’ 800m), Avantika Narale of Maharashtra (girls’ 100m), Delhi’s Shahnawaz Khan (boys’ high jump), Madhya Pradesh’s Ikram Ali Khan (boys’ discus throw), Seema (girls’ 300m) and Kerala’s Aparna Roy (100m hurdles) were the other winners. PTI
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