Athletics India – Sweat revenge by Salahuddin in triple jump – Coincidence never occurred often. They are rare and god-sent! National Inter-Zonal Junior Athletics Championships-2011 / By Ram. Murali Krishnan

Bhopal, 3 September 2011 – Yesterday in Daegu, American long jumper Dwight Phillips proudly displayed his bib number “1111” to mention his fourth time victory in the World championships.   Today when Phillips about to climb on the podium another jumper was standing on the runway several thousand kilometres away in Bhopal’s T.T. stadium.  Like Phillips he had a mission to accomplish and a point to prove.

 Salahuddin, trained by his father and former SAF Games gold medallist Mohammed Nizamuddin, was already an international at 17 years!  He has represented the nation in the Asian continental qualifier for the inaugural Youth Olympic Games at Singapore last year following his maiden win in triple jump at the National Youth Championships in Coimbatore. However he had disappointing second place in this year’s Youth Nationals at Ranchi, when losing the crown to Haryana’s Sandeep after jumping 15.24m.  Sandeep set a meet record in Ranchi by leapt 15.33m and donned the national colours when took part in the World Youth Championships at Lille, France, where he could manage only 14.14m.

 However the day belongs to Salahuddin as he made a remarkable series of jumps taking his strides on the rain-soaked runway and registered his personal best 15.25m for the gold wearing an auspicious bib number “786”.  

Struggling to find his rhythm Sandeep finished a distance eighth with a surprising 12.63m.  But another Haryana athlete Vikas took the silver in 14.71m.  “I expect Sala to do 15.50 or over, but rain played a spoilsport” revealed Nizamuddin after the event.   His mark is notable as the under-20 winner R. Rajasekhar, also from Tamil Nadu, could manage only 14.90 for the gold!

 Another youth athlete to catch the eye was Rajendra Bind from Uttar Pradesh.   A fine steeplechaser,

Bind was an easy winner in 3,000m run in the absence of his teammate and national record holder Indrajeet Patel in 8:42.94. 

 Karnataka’s Deeksha missed the meet mark in girls under-14 long jump by just 1 cm when achieved the winning leap of 5.16m.

 / Ram. Murali Krishnan /