New Delhi
The penultimate day of the 26th National Federation Cup Athletics Championship being held at Ranchi’s Birsa Munda Stadium was dominated by high hurdlers.
Andhra Pradesh’s international hurdler Jyothi Yarraji announced her arrival in Ranchi by setting a meet record (13.18 secs) in heats of women’s 100m hurdles. On Thursday she further improved her own meet record by clocking 12.89 seconds on her way to winning gold.
Jyothi looked calm when she stepped on the track and had a penalty to spare after she crossed the finish line. While others were grasping for breath, Jyothi was relaxed.
Jyothi has also qualified for the July 12-16 Asian Athletics Championship to be held in Bangkok, Thailand.
Tamil Nadu’s R Nithya Ramraj trailed at second place with a time of 13.44 secs, while Sapna Kumari of Jharkhand was third at 13.58 secs. Both Nithya Ramraj and Sapna Kumari have also achieved the Asian athletics qualifying time of 13.63 secs.
As expected, the men’s 110m hurdles gold went to Maharashtra’s Tejas Ashok Shirse. He was far ahead of other competitors in the final and his gold medal winning time was 13.72 seconds. He was the only athlete in the final to dip below 14 seconds.
Punjab’s Twinkle will be one to watch in the final of women’s 800m scheduled for Thursday. In her heat she clocked 2:05.39 to breach the Asian qualifying mark of 2:05.74 secs.
On the men’s side only two athletes posted a time below 1:50 in the 800m heats.
While Ankesh Chaudhary of Himachal Pradesh clocked 1:49.73 secs in his heat, Anu Kumar of Uttarakhand was the second runner to post a time of 1:49.93 secs. Both fell short of the Asian qualification time of 1:49.05 secs.
With Haryana’s Krishan Kumar whose personal best is 1:46.95 secs clocked recently in Japan has also advanced to the final, the race to win gold will be interesting to see.
Results (all finals)
Men: 110mh (Asian qualifying time 13.57 secs): Tejas Ashok Shirse (Mah) 13.72 secs, Madhvendra S (Rajasthan) 14.01 secs, Sachin Binu (Kerala) 14.23 secs.
women
100mh (Asian qualifying time 13.63 secs): Jyothi Yarraji (Andhra Pradesh) 12.89 secs, R Nithya Ramraj (Tamil Nadu) 13.44 secs, Sapna Kumari (Jharkhand) 13.58 secs.
Discus throw (Asian qualifying mark 55.59m): Shalini Chaudhary (Madhya Pradesh) 49.35m, Paramjot Kaur (Punjab) 48.76m, Salmi Kispotta (Odisha) 46.31m.