Double delight for Preeja

Running the 1500m, which is not her pet event, she pipped Jhuma Khatun of Bengal in a photo finish. Running on the front from the start Preeja held on to the lead but Jhuma8217;s last burst just 25 metre from finish almost took Preeja by surprise. But this Southern Railway employee who is based in Kerala managed to lunge forward at the finish. Preeja clocked 4:38:38 seconds while Jhuma was close behind with 4:38:75 seconds.

8220;It was a mistake actually. I was entered in 1500m by mistake and if I don8217;t take part in this event I won8217;t be able to participate in the 10000m, so I had to compete,8221; she said after the race.

However, in her pet 10000 m event, Preeja won the gold with relative ease. She followed the leaders right from the start maintaining a certain distance as the bunch took the final bend. On the straight Preeja overtook both Preeti Rao of Jarkhand and Madhuri K Gurnule of Maharashtra from the outside to complete the race in 36:09:30 seconds. Preeti finished with a timing of 36:10:93 seconds to give Jharkhand their second medal medal at the Games.

Earlier, Kashinath Aswale created a new meet record in the men8217;s 10000m clocking 29:39:94 seconds gave Jharkhand their first gold medal of the meet. Surender of Services and Raghunath S of Tamil Nadu came in second and third respectively.

In the pole vault event, VS Surekha of Tamil Nadu could not break the national record of 4.08m but bettered the meet record of 3.35m set by Chetna Solanki in the last Games. Surekha crossed 3.85m today.