Indian Athletics – 3rd National Open Athletics Championships (Day 4) – Railways retained overall champs while Suriya and Dutee Chand completes double / By Ram. Murali Krishnan /

 

Luckily all the events scheduled for the day have been completed in time.  Odisha sprinter Dutee Chand, running under ONGC banner, completes a double by adding the gold in 200m dash to the 100m she won earlier.   The Asian bronze medallist was just three hundredth of a second faster than her nearest rival Chavi Sharawat of Railways in the evening’s final.  Her state-mate Amiya Kumar Mallick ward off the challenge from Railway star Manikanda Arumugam as he went on to win the race in a noteworthy 21.22 secs.

 

Triple jump national record-holder Renjith Maheswary fails to defend his title as young Arpinder Singh once again upset him for the top spot by just 6 cm.  In yet another upset his teammate Sajeesh Joseph could not accomplish his second hat-trick of the championships as he lost the 1500m to services runner Sandeep Karan Singh.  Earlier Sajeesh achieved the hat-trick of wins in 800m.

 

Suriya Loganathan (23) completes a distance double, an act she first played in the previous edition of the Open Nationals at Chennai, and become the second athlete from Indian Railways to achieve a double at Ranchi after her teammate M.A. Prajusha did it with long and triple jumps.   

 

 In that process Suriya improved her personal best to 34:07.45.  Her previous best was 34:43.63 which she registered while finished seventh in this year’s Asian championships at Pune.  Suriya showed a steady progress in recent times and holding the Indian record for indoors in 3,000m with 9:09.81 clocked during the Asian Indoor Championships at Hangzhou, China, last year.

 

Army lad Kheta Ram (25), who barely missed a podium-finish at the Asian championships, wrests the men’s title with a time of 29:47.92.  Former Asian Junior champion Suresh Kumar Patel (ONGC) pushed the Services runner right from the beginning of the race and settled with a silver in a credible 29:48.10.  Earlier this year Suresh won the Federation Cup at Patiala and Kheta Ram took the Inter-State title in Chennai.    

 

Athletes from services team made a clean sweep of medals in 400m with Kunhu Mohammed taking the top spot that prevents Arokya Rajiv defend the title in this event.

 

U.P. thrower Chandrodaya Narayan Singh recaptured the gold in hammer throw after two years while Parmila (Railways) clinched the medal on yellow metal in the absence of top names in the women’s discus throw.

 

Services team bettered their own meet record in men’s 4x400m relay.

Results:

 

MEN:

 

200m (w: 0.2m/s): 1. Amiya Kumar Mallick (Odisha) 21.22 secs, 2. Manikanda Arumugam (Railways) 21.47, 3. Abudl Najeeb Qureshi (ONGC) 21.56, 4. V. Sajin (Services) 21.90, 5. Bino Aquito (ONGC) 21.97, 6. Yesu Raj (Services) 21.98;

 

400m: 1. Kunhu Mohammed (Services) 46.51 secs, 2. Arokya Rajiv (Services) 46.82, 3. Sachin Roby (Services) 46.91, 4. Sandeep Lathwal (Haryana) 47.32, 5. K.J. Arun (Kerala) 47.64, 6. Parveen (Haryana) 48.83;

 

1,500m: 1. Sandeep Karan Singh (Services) 3:46.97, 2. Sajeesh Joseph (Railways) 3:47.91, 3. Anil Singh (Madhya Pradesh) 3:48.05, 4. K.K. Ranjan (Services) 3:48.56, 5. Pranjal Gogai (Services) 3:50.00, 6. C. Manikandan (Delhi) 3:50.92;

 

10,000m: 1. Kheta Ram (Services) 29:47.92, 2. Suresh Kumar (ONGC) 29:48.10, 3. Ratiram Saini (Railways) 29:53.40, 4. Vishram Meena (Rajasthan) 30:05.53, 5. V.L. Dangi (Services) 30:19.57, 6. Santosh Kumar (Madhya Pradesh) 30:25.49;

 

Triple Jump: 1. Arpinder Singh (ONGC) 16.70m, 2. Renjith Maheswary (Railways) 16.64m, 3. A.V. Rakesh Babu (Services) 16.12m, 4. Birendra Singh (Services) 15.70m, 5. K. Sreejithmon (Kerala) 15.69m, 6. D. Arivu Selvam (Manipur) 15.45m;

 

Hammer Throw: 1. Chandrodaya Narayan Singh (Uttar Pradesh) 67.75m, 2. Niraj Kumar (Services) 66.19m, 3. Kaushal Singh (Services) 61.93m, 4. Amit Gill (Services) 59.13m, 5. Talvinder Singh (Railways) 58.78m, 6. Ramashankar Yadav (Madhya Pradesh) 58.53;

 

4 x 100m: 1. Tamil Nadu (M. Prakash, T. Balamurugan, S. Sathya, Al-Ameen) 41.02 secs, 2. Services 41.15, 3. Railways 41.34, 4. Rajasthan 41.63, 5. LIC 42.05, 6. Chandigarh 42.64;

 

4 x 400m: 1. Services (Kunhu Mohammed, Sachin Roby, Jithu Baby, Arokya Rajiv) 3:07.27 (NMR) (old record: Services 3:07.29 in 2002), 2. Haryana 3:11.87, 3. Railways 3:12.16, 4. Madhya Pradesh 3:13.84, 5. ONGC 3:13.94, 6. LIC 3:26.70;

 

WOMEN:

 

200m (w: 0.4m/s): 1. Dutee Chand (ONGC) 24.02 secs, 2. Chavi Sharawat (Railways) 24.05, 3. V. Santhini (LIC) 24.30, 4. Srabani Nanda (Odisha) 24.49, 5. M.R. Poovamma (ONGC) 24.56, 6. C. Arya (LIC) 25.43;

 

1,500m: 1. Sini A. Markose (ONGC) 4:29.72, 2. O.P. Jaisha (Railways) 4:30.52, 3. Jhuma Khatun (Railways) 4:31.00, 4. Sushma Devi (Railways) 4:31.97, 5. Kiranjit Kaur (Police) 4:32.84, 6. Jyoti Rani (ONGC) 4:35.68;

 

10,000m: 1. L. Suriya (Railways) 34:07.45, 2. Kavita Raut (ONGC) 34:36.25, 3. Preeja Sreedharan (Railways) 35:11.58, 4. Monika Athare (LIC) 35:43.44, 5. Rohini Fulchand Raut (Universities) 36:38.41, 6. Thippava Sannaki (Railways) 37:22.95;

 

Discus Throw: 1. Parmila (Railways) 48.10m, 2. Manisha (Haryana) 42.56m, 3. Ankita Julka (LIC) 42.52m, 4. Sushila (Police) 41.83m, 5. Himani (Delhi) 41.19m, 6. Santosh Kumari (Railways) 40.77m;

 

Heptathlon: 1. Sushmita Singha Roy (Railways) 5183 points, 2. Purnima Hembram (ONGC) 5108, 3. Navpreet Kaur (Punjab) 5052, 4. Liksy Joseph (Railways) 4851, 5. K.D. Sindhu (Kerala) 4764, 6. Niksy Joseph (Railways) 4697;

 

4 x 100m: 1. Railways (Mandeep Kaur, Merlin K. Joseph, P.K. Priya, Saradha Narayana) 46.35 secs, 2. LIC 47.68, 3. Kerala 48.75, 4. ONGC 49.27, 5. Universities 50.33, 6. Delhi 50.46;

 

4 x 400m: 1. Kerala (K. Sinsha, Jessy Joseph, Nimisha Jayaprakash, Anilda Thomas) 3:43.90, 2. Railways 3:44.70, 3. ONGC 3:45.79, 4. LIC 3:47.47, 5. Police 4:02.00.