Anil Kumar emerges fastest

IMPHAL, Feb 20: Anil Kumar today became the fastest man in the country at the close of the athletic events while swimmer Nisha Millet of ...

IMPHAL, Feb 20: Anil Kumar today became the fastest man in the country at the close of the athletic events while swimmer Nisha Millet of Karnataka enlightened moods as she bagged her ninth gold at the fifth National Games.

Services and Punjab emerged as team champions in the men and women section respectively in the athletics event.

The gap between Kerala and Manipur medals tally is narrowing. Kerala has 32 gold and the hosts 24. In swimming, Nisha continued to make waves and will be a strong contender for the Sportswoman of the Games,8217; as she emulated her last Games8217; feat of nine gold.

Three more new National games records have been set in the athletic events. The highlight of the day was, however, Anil Kumar who pipped National holder Amit Khanna in 100 m Men8217;s sprint while in the women8217;s section V Jayalaxmi of Tamil Nadu got the gold, but well below the marks set by PT Usha 14 years ago in the New Delhi.

In the shooting events, Jaspal Rana got his fourth gold when he set another National Gamesrecord in the air pistol event scoring 676.3 points even as sister Sushma got the sports pistol gold scoring 659.5 points which happens to be a new Games record too.

Results: Men: 100m: 1 Anil Kumar Ser 10.58s, 2 Amit Khanna Del 10.73s, 3 Arup Chaterjee WB 10.79s; 4x400m: 1 Kerala 3:13.02s, 2 Punjab 3:13.14s, 3 TN 3:15.63s; Hammer: 1 P Tiwari UP 65.61m, 2 N Chowdhary Ser 60.83m, 3 SK Tomar Bih 58.16m; Javelin: 1 Bikramjit Man 70.30m, 2 R Dubey Mah 67.90m, 3 Naval Del 67.13m; 20 km walk: 1 Sita Ram Ser 1:33.16s, 2 Deband Man 1:33.16s, 3 Amrik Singh Ser 1:33.24s.

Women: 100m: 1 V Jayalaxmi TN 11.90s, V Pandeeswari TN 12.02s, 3 S Dey WB 12.12s; 5,000m: 1 Sunita Ran Pun 16:05.30s, 2 M A Molly Kar 17:18.24s, 3 Vijaya Sonawane Mah 18:08.06s; 4x400m: 1 TN 3:42.63s, 2 Delhi 3:45.75s; High jump: 1 Bobby Aloysius Ker 1.74m, 2 S Jayanthi TN 1.71m, 3 B Deshmukh WB 1.71m; Discus: 1 Neelam Singh Pun 51.50m, 2 Swanarjeet Kaur Pun 49.74m, 3 Seroj Kumar Del 47.19m;Heptathlon: 1 Soma Biswas WB 5165 pts, 2 JJ Shobha AP.

Maharashtra prevail

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Spirited Maharashtra upset Delhi and Tamil Nadu to clinch both the men8217;s and women8217;s doubles tennis gold. In the men8217;s doubles final, Maharashtra8217;s Asif Ismail and Gaurav Natekar baffled Delhi8217;s duo Vishal Uppal and Vijay Khanna in straight sets 6-2, 6-1.

In the women8217;s doubles final, second seed Janaki Krishnamurthy and Radhika Tulpule of Maharashtra downed top-seed pair of Rushmi Chakravorty and Sumitra Rao of Tamil Nadu 6-0, 4-6, 6-4 to win the gold. Tamil Nadu which clinched the men8217;s team title won the second gold earlier in the day when top-seed Rushmi Chakravorty annexed the women8217;s single title beating second seed Janaki Krishnamurthy of Maharashtra in straight sets 6-2, 7-5.

Punjab, Kerala score

National champions Punjab men and defending champion Kerala women began their campaign volleyball competition in the opening league ties at the Khuman Lampak Indoor Stadium today.

While Punjab, the silvermedal winner of the last National Games, overpowered Himachal Pradesh 25-19, 25-10, 25-14 in 50 minutes. In a pool A match, Kerala girls had some anxious moments before they overcame Maharashtra 25-22, 25-17, 28-26.