Anu Raghavan beat the seasoned Jauna Murmu in the women’s 400-metre hurdles and set a new meet record with a time of 57.39 seconds on the opening day of the 21st Federation Cup athletics championship at the Netaji Subhash National Institute of Sports Complex here on Thursday.
On a day that saw Olympian Manpreet Kaur throwing one metre below her best in women’s shot put and yet setting a new meet mark, and a fresh mark being set in the women’s hammer throw, Anu brought the track alive with her strong finish, as she held on to the lead gained over the hurdles.
Late in the evening, long after sunset, Sarita Singh set a national record in women’s hammer throw with her fifth throw of 65.25 metres. The previous mark was in the name of Manju Bala set in Lucknow in 2014.
Sarita, who headed a sweep of the hammer medals by Uttar Pradesh, had a sequence of 61.94, 63.58, 64.54, 63.73 before she came up with her best throw. She had a no mark on the last throw. Quite understandably, Manpreet Kaur, who has already qualified for the World Championship to be staged in London in August, was not too pleased with her effort and got a firing from the coaches for not being able to sustain her training standards while competing at the training base at home.
Three-way tie
In women’s high jump, there was a three-way tie, but multiple national champion Sahana Kumari won the gold on the basis of her early success over the height of 1.76 metres, while Jyothi and K.C. Chandana bagged the silver as they had an unbreakable tie.
There was an upset in the women’s 800-metre heats in the morning as Olympian and Asian Games silver medallist Tintu Luka clocked 11 seconds below her best to get beaten by G.K. Vijayakumari, who clocked 2 minutes 09.85 seconds. Tintu clocked 2:10.19. The final, of course, could be a different story.
The results:
Men
5000m: 1. G. Lakshmanan 14:02.90; 2. Murli Kumar Gavit 14:05.04; 3. Suresh Kumar 14:06.11.
400m hurdles: 1. M.P. Jabir 50.47; 2. T. Santhosh Kumar 50.68; 3. Durgesh Kumar Pal 51.04.
Pole vault: 1. Subramaniam Shiva 5.14 (NR, old 5.13, KP Bimin, Jabalpur, 2012); 2. Anuj 4.90; 3. Krishna Prasad 4.90.
Women
5000m: 1. L. Suriya 15:54.78; 2. Sanjivani Jadhav 15:59.54; 3. Monika Athare 16:44.16.
400m hurdles: 1. Anu Raghavan 57.39 (NMR, old 57.60); 2. Jauna Murmu 57.51; 3. M. Arpitha 57.64.
High jump: 1. Sahana Kumari 1.76; 2. Jyothi and K.C. Chandana 1.76.
Shot put: 1. Manpreet Kaur 17.04 (NMR, old 16.94); 2. Ramanpreet Kaur 14.90; 3. Anamika Das 14.67.
Hammer throw: 1. Sarita Singh 65.25 (NR, old 62.74); 2. Gunjan Singh 61.95; 3. Nidhi Kumari 57.99.
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