Sharmila Kumari upset Asian championship and former Asian Games bronze-medallist Annu Rani to claim the women's javelin throw gold medal on the opening day of the National Open athletics championships at the Kalinga Stadium here on Tuesday.
Sharmila, who had missed out on a berth in the Asian Games after finishing second in the National inter-state meet in Guwahati in June, made a gradual progress to lead a Railways one-two-three on the podium.
While Annu achieved 52.98m, Sharmila, hailing from Haryana, did a 53.17m in their fourth attempts. Sharmila bettered her performance to achieve her personal best of 54.85m in her penultimate attempt and seal the issue.
“I have been coming second for quite some time. So I was well prepared for this and gave my best,” said Sharmila.
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Annu said she could not give her best because of a tonsil issue. “I have been suffering from this tonsil problem even before the Commonwealth Games. I could not perform well in the Asian Games because of this.
“I saw a doctor in my home town Meerut and he asked me to go through surgery. Since the season is over, I will have the surgery now. It will take me one month to recover fully before resuming training,” said Annu.
Muralikumar Gavit of Gujarat timed 29:49.79 to take the men's 10000m title. Railways Ranjeet Patel gave Gavit a close chase only to settle for the silver with a timing of 29:50.43.
National record-holder Amiya Mallick was one of the prominent names to crash out of the men's 100m in the semifinals stage. Mallick clocked 10.73 to come fourth in the third leg of the semifinals.
“I have been facing an injury issue. When I am doing the rehab, I get well but find the injury to reappear while training. This has been troubling me for sometime now,” said Mallick.
National record-holder Siva S., who had hit headlines by doing 5.30m in the inter-Services meet in Bangalore a week ago, could not achieve his target of reaching 5.50m but managed 5.10m to set a new meet record and take the men's pole vault gold.
“Today my calf muscles were tight, which prevented me from reaching my target,” said Siva.
Two Japanese athletes, one in women's 400m and another in 100m hurdles, had landed late on Monday and could not make it to the start list. However, the Athletics Federation of India entered their names on Tuesday morning and allowed them to compete.
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