With Arpinder Singh bagging a rare gold at the recent Asian Games in Jakarta, triple jump is a big event in Indian athletics. And when Mumbai’s Jay Shah broke the meet record with a 16.36m effort at the 79th National inter-university championships at the Swaraj Stadium here on Monday, assistant national coach Bibu Mathew was keen on getting the details about the young man.
Jay has made stunning progress in a very short time. Just a year ago, he had a personal best of 15.07m and suddenly this year he is doing more than a metre more.
No longer nervous
“I used to get very nervous before competitions earlier. I have overcome that now… and now I’m getting the big jumps,” explained the 21-year-old after jolting host Mangalore University’s Youth Olympics bronze medallist Praveen Chitravel who had a best of 16.05m for the silver.
Meanwhile, MG University’s V.K. Salini took the gold that mattered the most for Kerala girls — the 400m title — pipping her university-mate and favourite Jerin Joseph with a time of 54.21s. With Asian championship bronze medallist Jisna Mathew opting to do only the relay here, the other quartermilers had an easy run.
Later, Mangalore’s Poonam Rani broke international Annu Rani’s meet record while taking the women’s javelin gold with 53.26m, while National champion Ravina bagged the women’s 20km race walk crown.
NADA missing
Despite many record-breaking performances, the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) is missing here. The 100m runners were in stunning form on Sunday and that should have brought the NADA officials rushing here.
“We didn’t call them, but they should have come here if they felt so,” said C.K. Kishore Kumar, the organising secretary.
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