Chennai, June 5: Olympians Sahana Kumari of Karnataka and Tintu Luka of Kerala won their respective events while Tamil Nadu long jumper Prem Kumar set a new meet record on the second day of the 53rd National Inter-State Senior Athletic Championships here today.
Prem Kumar cleared 8m in his fifth and final jump to set a new meet record. Arshad of Karnataka (7.85m) was second while Ankit Sharma of Madhya Pradesh was third in 7.67m.
Favourite Luka, watched by her mentor P T Usha, won the women’s 800m race in 2min 04.14secs. She led all through the race and finished three seconds ahead of Gomathi of Tamil Nadu (2:07.33). Haryana’s Sushma Devi (2:07.95s) was third.
32-year-old Sahana, a mother of a seven-year-old girl, was the main attraction at high jump event and she won it with an effort of 1.88m. She, however, flopped in her all three attempts to reach her own mark of 1.92m, which is also the national record.
Mallika Mondal of Bengal (1.74m) and N D Tintu of Kerala (1.68m) won the silver and bronze medals respectively.
Coming back from an injury after two years, G Gayathry, a local collegiate from St Joseph’s Academy, brought cheers to the home state, as she won gold in 100m hurdles, while Kerala’s Pinto Mathew bagged her maiden title at senior level when he clinched gold in a tight race in men’s 110m hurdles.
22-year-old Gayathry covered the distance in 13.97secs which was just 0.53 seconds below Anuradha Biswal’s meet record set in July 2000. It was one-two for Tamil Nadu as J Hamasree (14.04s) claimed the silver, while Kerala’s K V Sajitha (14.33s) settled for bronze.
In the men’s hurdles, Pinto won gold in 14.56secs, while Tamil Nadu’s Balamurugan (14.76s) and Sandeep Parmar of Maharashtra (14.82s) were second and third respectively.
In women’s shot put, Andhra Pradesh’s Udaya Laxmi, a silver medallist at home last year, threw the iron ball to 13.68m to win gold while Neha Singh (13.56m) of M P and Punjab’s Navjit Kaur (13.49m) won silver and bronze respectively. (PTI)
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