Bengaluru: Shaili Singh came up with a season's best effort of 6.41m in her last attempt to win the women's long jump title in her maiden appearance on the final day of the National Open Athletics Championships here on Wednesday. Her final jump, her second longest leap ever, provided a golden touch to the final day's proceedings. The 18-year-old Uttar Pradesh athlete's opening effort of 6.25m was better than the 6.22m that Kerala jumpers Sruthi Lekshmi and Nayana James managed across their six tries each.
In the men's 200m, Tamil Nadu's Ragul Kumar ran his first sub-21 second race as he won in 20.87 seconds, the third fastest time by an Indian this year behind the 20.52 and 20.55 clocked by Amlan Borgohain in the Federation Cup in April and the National Games earlier this month.
Gujarat's Murli Kumar Gavit won the men's 10,000m, his first national crown in four years since claiming the distance double in Bhubaneswar in September 2018. Akita Dhyani (Railways) made her maiden 10,000m race at the national level a memorable one by winning it in 34:39.05.
The 35km men's and women's race walk events produced meet records for Ram Baboo (Uttar Pradesh) and Payal (Uttarakhand). Ram Baboo improved his own mark by more than seven minutes by winning in 2 hours 29 minutes and 5 seconds. Payal beat the record holder Ramandeep Kaur and her mark set last year by more than 10 minutes in winning in 3 hours 4 minutes 48 seconds.
Hammer thrower K M Rachna (Uttar Pradesh) marked her returned to competition with three efforts over 60m, including a personal best of 63.66m, to beat national record holder Sarita Romit Singh. Sarita Singh sent the ball and chain over 59.85m and 59.96m to edge out Tanya Chaudhary in the race to second place. Shot Putter Tajinderpal Singh Toor (Services), whose performance was worth 1162 points, and 100m hurdler Jyothi Yarraji (Railways), whose sub-13 second effort was worth 1174 points, claimed the Best Athlete titles for men and women respectively.
Railways won the overall team championships with 297 points, while Services and hosts Karnataka were second and third, with 174 and 69.50 points, respectively. Services, which scored all its points in the men's events, beat Railways to the men's title. The Railways women collected a whopping 201 points to leave Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh far behind. (PTI)
