Indian Athletics – News – 25th National Inter-Zone Junior Athletics Championships (day-3) – Ram. Murali Krishnan /

Kochi, Kerala – 24 September 2013 Thanks to the rejuvenated effort of their girl athletes, hosts Kerala State jumped in to the top spot in the girls division (257 points) and placed runners-up (378 points) behind Tamil Nadu (440.5 points) for the overall title in the three day silver jubilee edition of the National Inter-Zonal Junior Athletics Championships which concluded at Maharaja College Stadium here on Tuesday evening.

 

In the medal tally Tamil Nadu led the table with 28 gold, 23 silver and 17 bronze medals closely followed by Kerala (24-18-19) while Maharashtra (14-12-15), Haryana (11-14-4) and West Bengal (8-11-11) finished in that order.

 

As much as six national records and eight meet marks were improved in the above championships.

 

Athletes from Kerala accounted for two of the three national marks which have been bettered on the final day.  Young Gayathry Sivakumar, who scaled 1.60m during the Kerala State Inter-Club championships earlier at Kochi and won the South Zone junior championships at Madurai with 1.56m, utilised the opportunity to establish an official national record in girls’ under-14 category at her training venue by high jumped 1.59m.   In a similar style half-miler Jessy Joseph, who clocked a personal best 2:06.82 while finished fourth in the Open Nationals at Kochi earlier this month, bettered the official meet and national youth girls’ record in 800m with a time of 2:08.67.

 

Parul Chaudhary, a second year B.A. student from Meerut who is holding the national youth record in steeplechase, registered the final national record of the meet as she clocked an impressive 6:57.68 to win the 2000m steeplechase gold in the Junior Women category.   Her state-mate Arjun Kumar improved the meet record in youth boys’ 3000m run with 8:37.97. 

 

In five out of eight age-groups Tamil Nadu athletes adjudged ‘best athletes’ award.   Augustine Yesudas and S. Archana, both completes their sprint double today, received this honour in the junior men and junior women divisions.  A. Dharun (BU-18), R. Naveen (BU-14) and S. Lithiya (GU-14) were the other athletes from TN to take away the titles.  Two Bengali quarter-milers Chandan Bauri and Tiasha Samadder in the under-16 categories for boys and girls besides Jessy Joseph of Kerala in the youth girls’ section also got the above award.

 

/ Ram. Murali Krishnan /