Inderjeet Singh is the new poster boy of Indian athletics. The Haryana shot putter established himself in the Indian sports scene, with a hat-trick of medals in the Indian Grand Prix, after booking a ticket on the Rio bound team. In the recently concluded 55th National Inter-State Athletics Championship in Chennai, Singh rewrote a meet record with a throw of 20.44 metres.
Here are the results from the final day of the Inter-State Athletics Championships.
Inderjeet, who looks well set to bring home a medal from Rio, was the cynosure of all eyes. Though the University Games Gold medalist started with a mediocre 18.41 metres, he later found his momentum throwing the ball to 19.25 metres in the second attempt, improved upon it to clear 19.70 metres, slumped to 19.36 metres in the fourth, and ultimately, cleared 20.42 metres in the final attempt. Enroute to Gold, Inderjeet also battered a 15-year-old meet record (20.42 metres, set by compatriot Shakti Singh).
Inderjeet was not the only one to take a medal on the trot. MR Poovamma bagged her fifth straight win in the women’s 400 metres event in the Inter-State Athletics, stopping the clocks at 52.78 seconds. However, the Kannadiga, who was declared the best woman athlete of the meet, failed to clear the World Championships’ qualification mark. Keralite Jisna Mathew bagged silver (53.51 seconds) and Bengal’s Debashree Majumdar took bronze (53.68 seconds).
In the parallel men’s event, Rajiv Arokia took Gold for the hosts with a timing of 45.72 seconds. Teammate A Dharun came in second (46.87 seconds), while Chattisgarh’s Jibin Sebastian came third (47.32 seconds).
Prem Kumar took Telangana’s maiden Gold, beating Kerala’s Pinto Mathew (14.43 seconds) and Tamil Nadu’s J Thiyagarajan (15.11 seconds) in the men’s 110 metres hurdles.
In long jump, Tamil Nadu’s Prem Kumar took Gold with a jump of 7.91 metres,while Haryana’s Ankit Sharma took silver (7.71 metres) and Karnataka’s Samsheer took bronze (7.55 metres).
In men’s 100 metres race, Haryana’s Dharambir Singh came in first, clocking 10.51 seconds. Odisha’s Amiya Kumar came second (10.58 seconds), while Delhi’s Vikas Gulia bagging bronze (10.65 seconds). The analogous women’s event saw some surprise, with National Champion Dutee Chand being pushed to the third position (12.10 seconds). Karnataka’s HM Jyoti emerged victorious (11.87 seconds), while Gujarat’s Merlin K Joseph took silver.
Kerala won the meet title, accruing 177.5 points, while hosts Tamil Nadu came in a distant second with 146. 5 points. The men’s title went to Haryana (99 points), the women’s to Kerala (144.5 points), while Tamil Nadu emerged runners-up in both.