Services Championships: Pranav, Abdulla impress

Abdulla's jump was the best by an Indian triple jumper this year and bettered his previous best (16.67, 2019) by 12 centimetres.

REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE: Navy's K.S. Pranav emerged as the fastest man in an impressive 10.28s, the second best time by an Indian this year.

Abdulla Aboobacker surprised Federation Cup champion Karthik Unnikrishnan, his Air Force teammate, and won the triple jump gold with a personal best of 16.79m in the 70th Services athletics championships which concluded at the Kalinga Stadium, Bhubaneswar, on Sunday.

Abdulla's jump was the best by an Indian triple jumper this year and bettered his previous best (16.67, 2019) by 12 centimetres. Karthik took the silver with 16.53.

Meanwhile, Navy's K.S. Pranav emerged as the fastest man in an impressive 10.28s, the second best time by an Indian this year. Army Red, which included Olympian Arokia Rajiv, defeated Navy in 4x400m relay, which also had an Olympian in 400m national record holder Muhammed Anas.

The gold medallists: Men: 100m: K.S. Pranav (Navy) 10.28s. 3000M steeple chase: L. Sankar (Army) 8:47.58s. 4X400m relay: Army (T. Santhosh Kumar, Lakshyadeep, Arokia Rajiv, Angrej Singh) 3:07.81s. Long jump: S.M. Naik (Air Force) 7.74m. Triple jump: Abdulla Aboobacker (Air Force) 16.79m. Javelin throw: Abhishek Singh (Navy) 79.63m. 35Km walk: K. Ganapathi 3:04.24s. Overall championship: 1. Army Red (102 pts), 2. Navy (69), 3. Air Force (56).