CALCUTTA, OCTOBER 11: Railways claimed both the men's and women's team championship titles as three meet records fell by the wayside on the concluding day of the 40th Open National Athletics Championship at the Salt Lake Stadium, here on Wednesday.KM Beenamol (women's 400m), Karamjeet Kaur (women's pole vault) and OP Dudi (men's javelin) stole the limelight with record-breaking performances as Railways scooped up six of the 13 gold medals on offer on the last day of the meet. Railways, who had won both the men's and women's team championship in the last Open National at Bhopal, retained the honour by taking the men's and women's title again with 150 and 158 points respectively.KM Beenamol of Railways, the cynosure of all eyes at the meet, set a new meet record in her favourite women's 400m event with a timing of 52.25 sec, eclipsing Shiny Wilson's record of 52.41 sec established in 1994.Karamjeet Kaur of Police set a new record in the women's pole vault event managing to clear a height of 3.10m, thus becoming the first woman to cross the 3m height. Karamjeet improved upon her own National record of 2.82 established in the inter-state meet in March at Lucknow.Railwayman OP Dudi was the other record-breaker on the last day as he re-wrote the meet record in the men's javelin throw event with an effort of 76.96m, eclipsing Jagdish Singh's record of 76.36m set in 1998.In the men's 5000m run, the experienced Gulab Chand of Railways kept his reputation intact by claiming the gold medal with a timing of 15:00.29 sec while Aman Saini of Steel Plants had to be content with the silver medal clocking 15:00.59 sec. Seema Antil of Police caused an upset of sorts by taking the gold in the women's discus event by covering a distance of 57.20m, pushing favourite Neelam J Singh to the second position. Amit Kumar Saha did the Railways proud by securing the gold medal in the 110m hurdles.
