Rahul and Ankita are fastest athletes: Nat Youth Athletics
TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: National youth shot put record-holder Meghna Devanga successfully defended her title on the opening day of 11th National Youth Athletics Championships at the GMC Athletics Stadium in Bambolim, on Sunday morning.
In addition to retaining her champion status she had further joy by obliterating the meet mark in her pet event by putting the shot to a new distance of 14.63m. The burly Maharashtrian has a personal best of 15.35m to her credit when she finished sixth in the World School Gymnasiade at Brasilia last year. She also barely missed a medal in the Asian Youth Games at Nanjing in 2013 while finished fourth with a mark of 14.51m.
The GMC Athletics Stadium has the honour of hosting the state’s first-ever national athletics championships.
In the 100m finals, the marquee event of the day, fierce competition between three athletes was witnessed. While UP lad Rahul Kumar had an edge over the rest to win the men’s crown in 10.97 secs, the next two places had to be decided by photo-finish as Kshitij Bhoite (Maharashtra) and Kerala sprinter U Nithin finished an identical 10.99 secs.
Earlier in the morning Maharashtra’s Kisan Tadvi (8:31.77) and UP girl Sudha Pal (10:40.81) took away the gold medals in the 3,000m race for boys and girls respectively. Last year’s winner Abhishek Pal (Assam) could manage only a second place in the boys’ event.
Discus thrower Priyanka opened Haryana’s account by hurling the disc to 38.07. She also won a bronze medal in shot put. Her team mate Pushpa Jakhar retained her first place in the javelin throw.
Ankita Gosavi from Maharashtra, a specialist in hurdles, romped home a winner in women’s 100m clocking 12.49 secs. Odisha girl Senkuta Kullu was one place up from her last year’s bronze position to silver medal here in 12.54s. She went on to collect her second silver through long jump (5.46m) later in the evening in which Athira Surendran of Kerala earned the top spot with a leap of 5.55m.
