53rd National Open Athletics Championships Suriya defends title in style! Ranchi, Jharkhand – 7 September 2013 Distance runner Suriya Loganathan opened up her campaign here on a winning note as she successfully defends her title in women’s 5000m race with a personal best and Indian season leading mark of 16:24.58 on the opening day of 53rd National Open Athletics Championships in Birsa Munda Athletics Stadium this morning. In that process she pushed her training partner and railway teammate Preeja Sreedharan to second place (16:27.70) while ONGC runner Kavita Raut finished third in 16:33.50. The men’s race witnessed G. Lakshmanan extends his winning streak at the national scene as he pulled yet another surprise win over some of the top names on the business as the services athlete breached past the finish-line in a noteworthy 13:58.53 well ahead of ONGC duo Suresh Kumar (14:01.60) and Inderjit Patel (14:19.70). Pre-race favourite Nitender Singh Rawat, who had a clean sweep of distance running titles in the Asian Grand Prix series earlier this year, finished a distant fourth in 14:31.33. Both Suriya and Lakshmanan are hails from Pudukottai in Tamil Nadu and received their basic training from the former’s father Loganathan before enrolled to national camps. The evening’s proceedings witnessed yet another athlete from Tamil Nadu making the waves as R. Elavarasi clinched the gold in women’s 400m hurdles. Elavarasi, who had a perfect season this year with emphatic wins in Federation Cup (Patiala) and Inter-State (Chennai), signed off in style clocking 60.80 secs. Anju Rani (ONGC, 61.55 secs) finished second ahead of last year’s winner A. Papathi (Police, 61.88s), who went home with a bronze. Durgesh Kumar Pal of Services, the silver medallist in Youth Olympic Games who missed the entire season following an injury sustained during the Inter-State championships at Chennai this June, went on to win the men’s 400m hurdles with a season’s best 50.89 secs. In a similar passion Jithin Paul (51.14s) and Joseph G. Abraham (51.31s) of Railways returned personal best timings to occupy the next two spots on the podium. The Ranchi meet also witnessed a historical come-back by “Combined Universities” team fielded by Association of Indian Universities after a hiatus of nearly one and half decades. Shot putter Inderjeet Singh won a silver medal in this year’s World University Games at Kazan (Russia), a first of its kind for India. Perhaps that prompted AIU to join the mainstream athletics once again. In women’s long jump Commonwealth Games silver medallist M.A. Prajusha delivered a season’s best 6.25m for the gold while her railway teammate V. Neena (6.20m) did the same for the silver. Teenage sensation Bhumika Thakur (Punjab) leapt 5.95m—just 1 cm short of her 2013 best and National School Games winning mark—for the bronze in Ranchi. Defending champion Shraddha Ghule finished tenth with a paltry 5.54m. In the last edition at Chennai she leaped 6.36m for the title. Prajusha’s husband and national record-holder K.P. Bimin completes a ‘hat-trick’ of wins in pole vault by scaling 5 metres. Railway women continue to lead with yet another gold won by shot putter Manpreet Kaur who tossed the iron ball to 15.03m—a season leading mark for this event and the second best performance in her career! Neha Singh (Police, 13.62m) and U. Vasumathi (LIC, 13.12m) filled the other two places while defending champion Pinki Dey finished sixth (12.73m). In the preliminary rounds of men’s long jump LIC athlete Ankit Sharma leading the list with a leap of 7.77m well ahead of latest sensation Kumaravel Prem Kumar (Railways). The finals for this event is scheduled for tomorrow evening. Railway’s V.V. Raneesh leading the decathlon with 3519 points after the first day’s proceedings while his team is leading the championships with 64 points ahead of Services (22) and ONGC (18).
Posted on: Sat, 07 Sep 2013 15:36:16 +0000
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