Indian Athletics – 47th National Cross-country Championships – Services regain men’s title, but UP boys dominated the scene

Chapra, Bihar – 2 February 2013 – A cool Saturday morning greeted the runners from across the country at the ancient town of Chapra in Bihar. The services team, which finished third last year at Pune, overcome a stiff challenge from rest of the field to emerge victorious in the men’s 12 km race. 

 Railway’s Ritu Ram Saini led most part of the race before allowing the Army lad G. Lakshmanan to surge ahead at the waning moments to win in 34:50.40. 

 As usual the women’s title went to Railway team as a cake-walk and they extended their winning-streak by virtually swept the top six positions in the 8 km race with international O.P. Jaisha did the lead role to complete the distance in 26:35.52.

 Runners from Uttar Pradesh clinched the junior men’s 8 km race while Bengal girls were lucky to gain the junior women’s 6 km team title from the Kerala.   However Maharashtra’s Pooja Varade, fifth at Pune in 2012, breached the tape first in 21:10.93 in the 6K event, about 20 secs ahead of fancied M.D. Thara from Kerala—who recently bettered the Inter-University 10,000m record in Kalyani, West Bengal.  

 U.P. boys Anil Yadav (24:32.80), Virendra Kumar Pal (18:35.90) and Arjun Kumar (9:04.67) claimed the gold in boys’ u-20 (8km), u-18 (6km) and u-16 (3km) age-groups respectively.  Their teammate Sudha Pal triumphed in 3 km event for girls’ u-16 division.  However the youth girls 4km title went to Punjab’s Jyoti Saini in 14:46.93.

 Although they have not made it to the podium, hosts Bihar had a credible fourth place in the junior men’s 8 Km.

 / AFI /

Indian Athletics