Khanna, Rachita blaze the track

The 4×400 metres relay was held later and the Karnataka women ended the meet in a blaze of glory, winning the in a close finish from Delhi. Asha, Shanthi, Shyla and Rosa Kutty did their part. Rosa was stretched to the hilt by Delhi’s Jyothirmoy Sikdar but she lasted out admirably to bag her fourth gold of the meet. Earlier, she had reigned supreme in 400, 800 and 1500 metre races. However, teammate M K Asha, who had won the hurdles double, with a National record to boot in the 100 metres hurdles, was declared the `Best Woman Athlete of the Meet’.

Delhi won the team championship for men while Karnataka topped in the women’s section, besides claiming the overall title.

Amit was quite confident of winning the short sprint with a record. “I want to win with a record so that people will not say I won by default in the absence of Rajeev Balakrishnan, the National record holder.” And he did so with a powerful run in the last 50 metres to stop the clock at 10.54 seconds, bettering the old mark of 10.59 secs.

Anil Kumar of Services closed in on him quite strongly but had to be content with the silver, a spot ahead of Haryana’s Manoj Kumar.

Shyla, Pandeshwari and Asha were more fancied than Rachita who went into the race short of work, after missing the circuit for a couple of years due to the birth of her child. After a customary false start — a feature of sprint events in this meet — Rachita shot off the block and broke clear of the rest. Shyla, PT Usha and Pandeswari struggled hard to match strides with her in the early part. Pandeswari warmed up to finish aggressively like she had done in the 200 metres. However, Rachita just about lasted out to edge out Pandeswari and there was confusion for quite a while as both runners were not too sure who had won.

“I can’t believe it. I had not expected to come even third,” said Rachita, with tears of joy. “I can’t contain my excitement at having won when least expected,” she said, trying to catch her breath. Rachita, Pandeswari and Shyla finished almost in a line. Rachita was credited with a time of 11.86 seconds, Pandeswari 11.88 seconds and Shyla 11.89 seconds. Usha was a close fourth with a time of 11.98 seconds.

With Shiny not in the picture, Rosa Kutty was undoubtedly the best middle distance runner asserting her supremacy in the 1500 metres in tremendous fashion in a new Games record timing of 4:14.46 seconds.

Tamil Nadu’s K Sankar fought off resolutely to beat Delhi’s Gulab Chand in the men’s 5000 metres. Records fell in a heap as the events drew to a close. Karnataka’s Jaicy Thomas came up with her career-best leap of 1.79 metres to prevail over TN Jayanthi for the gold which bettered the old mark of 1.75 metres. Jaicy tried to go for the National record by attempting 1.81 metres but narrowly failed. Fancied Boby Aloysius, the National record holder at 1.80 metres, was below par fading away at 1.70 metres.