Railways dominate Open Nationals

Distance runner Preeja Sreedharan from the Railway team, who also claimed the 10,000m gold with a new record earlier in the meet, created a new meet record winning the 5,000m clocking 15:45.96 seconds. The previous record of 16:00.98 seconds was set by Sunita Rani in 1999.

Railways also dominated the men’s 5,000m with the title going to Sunil Kumar, a time of 14:00.80. Kashinath Aswal (silver) and Sandeep Kumar completed the tally.

The second record of the day was set in women’s high jump, when Sahana Kumari from the Railway crossed the bar at 1.82m, breaking Bobby Aloysius mark of 1.81 set in 1998.

In the men’s 200m, Arunjit clocked 20.92 seconds, bettering the previous mark of 21.06 seconds set by Anand Menezes in 2002.

Results

Men: 200m: Arunjit (Railway) 20.92 (NMR); 800m: Sajeesh Joseph (Railway) 1:47.42.; 5,000m: Sunil Kumar (Railway) 14:00.80.; Hammer: Harinder Singh (AIPSCB) 62.28m.; Triple jump: Amarjeet Singh Singh (Railway) 16.53m.; 400m hurdles: Kuldev Singh (AIPSCB) 50.70.; 4X100 relay: Indian Railway 40.25 seconds (Vilas Neelgund, Arvind A., Manjunath Godi, Sameer Mon).

Women: 200m: Geetha (Railway) 24.09.; 800m: Sinimol Paulose (SPSB) 2:02.02.; 5,000m: Preeja Sreedharan (Railway) 15:45.96 (NMR).; High jump: Sahana Kumari (Railway) 1.82m (NMR); 400m hurdles: V.Leelavathi (TN) 1:00.3.; 4X100 relay: Indain Railway 45.25 (Sharda N., Nidhi, Rakhi Saha, Poonam Tomar). 4X400 relay: Indian Railway 3:51.11 (Iyleen Samantha, Sutapa Das, Pavithra Chaudhary, Geetha).