Journalism of Courage
National record holder Sudha Singh of Railways bettered her own meet mark while winning gold in women8217;s 3000m steeplechase on the third and penultimate day of the 53rd National Open Athletics Championships. Sudha,Asian Championships silver medallist,clocked 10 minutes 9.04 secs to better her own old meet record of 10:09.56 set in 2010. Her Railways team-mate Lalita Babar was second 10:33.40 while Kiran Tiwari of Haryana was third in 10:52.75 .
Tamil Nadu hurdler Gayathry Govindaraj reassured her position at the national scene as she clocked the second fastest time in her career 13.70 secs to win the women8217;s 100m hurdles. Hemasree Jayabal LIC finished second in 14.19 secs.
Top quartermiler M R Povamma of ONGC bagged the gold in women8217;s 400m in 53.96 while Tintu Luka got the silver in 53.98 in a tight race.
M A Prajusha captured her second gold of the meet as she won the women8217;s triple jump event with a decent 12.91m leap. On the opening day of the Championships,she had won the long jump gold.
In the men8217;s discus throw,Haryana8217;s Arjun Kumar won the gold with an effort of 54.10m while Dharam Raj 50.99m of Services and Karan Singh 50.19m of Railways took the silver and bronze medals respectively.
Jithin C Thomas 2.11m of Services won the gold in men8217;s high jump event while teammate A Shaiju 2.08m and Karnataka8217;s Chetan 2.05 won the silver and bronze medals respectively.
Railway hurdler Arumugam Suresh won the men8217;s 110m hurdles in a noteworthy 14.19 secs well ahead of Kuppusamy Premkumar 14.34s.
In women8217;s pole vault Khyati Vakharia ONGC continued her winning spree by defending her gold from arch-rival and national record holder V S Sureka of Railways.
merlins mark in dispute?
Meanwhile,Merlin K Josephs new national record timing in womens 100m dash was questioned by Rachita Mistry in whose name the record had stood since 2000. Merlin ran 11.35 seconds on Sunday in the semifinal heats to shatter Mistrys 13-year-old national record of 11.38 secs created in Trivandrum in 2000.
Its unbelievable if you see the big gap in the three timings. She Merlin clocked 12.07 secs in first round heats and then out of blue ran 11.35 secs in semifinal heats. Then again she clocked 11.95 secs in the final to finish third, Mistry said. A gap of 0.72 secs between first round and semifinal is a huge one , she said.
