Indian Athletics – News – 27th National Junior Athletics Championships – Haryana halted Kerala’s unbeaten run to crown overall champions – / By Ram. Murali Krishnan /

 Ranchi, Jharkhand – 4 November 2011 – Congratulation guys, you did better this time” was Kerala’s reaction when Haryana state emerged as overall champions in the 27th National Junior Athletics Championship which concluded here at Birsa Munda Stadium this evening. 

Kerala, the sportive southern state, was unbeaten since 1998 when Kochi hosted the junior nationals for the first time and had won the overall champion title for a record fourteen times in a row.   Newly crowned Haryana led the medal tally with 27 gold, 16 silver and 15 bronze medals followed by Kerala (23-23-20) and Tamil Nadu (15-12-21).  Haryana’s success mainly came through their boys who grabbed 18 gold medals while Kerala girls contributed 19 golds to their state.

As in the past three days, Friday’s action also started with a record note when UP boy Inderjeet Patel secured a distance double while posting a new meet mark of 14:25.61 to win the junior men 5000m.  His teammate Manoj Yadav improved another record when hurled the javelin to 70.61m. 

In the youth boys’ 3000m run Harish Koranga of Uttarakhand came very close to Inderjeet Patel’s meet mark when timed 8:28.96 for the gold.  Haryana lad Surender Singh tossed the 5 kg iron ball to a new distance of 18.67m in the morning’s shot put finals to send an early warning to everyone that his state is going to claim the trophy later today. 

Paschim Banga’s Asesh Chandra Roy improved 1 cm to Kerala jumper Jithin C. Thomas’s meet mark of 1.98m in boys u-16 high jump event, for another double to add his long jump victory from the opening day. 

Asian Youth Games champion Namita Kabat cheered the home-crowed with her win over 800m in the junior women category.  Maharashtrian Monika M. Athar won her second gold through a noteworthy 10:00.41 clocking in 3000m.  She took the 5K title during the first day of the meet. 

Kerala’s national cross-country champion M.D. Thara became victor in youth girls 3000m.   Delhi boy Ashwani Sharma delivered a sprint double when he crossed first the finishline in 200m this afternoon.  Earlier he pocketed the 100m gold in junior men.  The same was the case with Tamil Nadu sprinter B. Karthikeyan in u-16 group.  Among the girls, R. Varsha ofKarnataka was the last athlete to claim the second gold of the meet through her 200-400m combination.

/ Ram. Murali Krishnan /

 Indian Athletics – News