ahmedabad shujat hussain and sajjad hussain are in their late 20s but never went to the national games prior to the ongoing edition resultwise their maiden outing wasnt great as they couldnt clear the heats on friday however winning here was not their expectation anyway the 100m sprinters are part of the threemember contingent from ladakh the third being their coach zakir hussain the national games is the first time the union territory ut has sent a contingent for a senior level multisport event we got a wildcard entry coach zakir said there are only two participants from ladakh as sport is still in an infancy stage in ladakh this is the first time any athlete from ladakh has participated in the national games earlier we were part of jk but our athletes could never make it to the state contingent the coach said as athletes from the jammu and kashmir region had better facilities the ones from ladakh could never match up to be part of the squads we are sprinters but we dont run on synthetic tracks which we have none sajjad 26 said shujat was a boxer but traded his gloves for running bootswe are both 25yearold and started the sport only two years ago after the bifurcation of the state i left boxing because we have no facilities at all running without a synthetic track was still better than boxing without a ring and kit he said sajjad said they are late starters but if given the opportunity they can do well normally athletes start when they are 1012 years old we started very late but i still feel we can do well we live in a highaltitude region and have very good stamina all we need is good facilities and trainers who can guide us the coach said the ut is starting from scratch to develop sports and register athletes but they need funding to hire good coaches and procure equipment tamil nadus praveen chitravel won bronze in the mens triple jump with his best jump of 1668m in the absence of big names like abdulla aboobacker karthik u and commonwealth games gold medallist eldhose paul keralas arun ab 1608m and punjabs arpinder singh 1597m won silver and bronze respectively tokyo olympics participant elavenil valarivan opened gujarats account by winning gold in the womens 10m air rifle event on friday elavenil beat karnatakas tilottama sen of karnataka 1610 in the goldmedal match west bengals mehuli ghosh clinched bronze i was shooting at my home range for the first time but there was no pressure i was rather excited to shoot in front of my friends and mother who was also watching me in action for the first time elavenil said in the mens 10m air rifle event maharashtras rudranksh patil defeated world cup gold winner arjun babuta of punjab 177 to win gold madhya pradeshs aishwary pratap singh tomar won bronze haryanas anish bhanwal took the mens rapidfire gold after shooting 30 in the final