Sunita Rani picks up second gold

IMPHAL, FEB 19: Sunita Rani of Punjab picked up her second gold of the fifth National Games, winning the 1,500m finishing way ahead of M ...

IMPHAL, FEB 19: Sunita Rani of Punjab picked up her second gold of the fifth National Games, winning the 1,500m finishing way ahead of M A Molly of Kerala in the athletics event today. Sunita, a double medallist at the Bangkok Asian Games, won comfortably in four minutes 21.45 seconds, with Molly a distant second in 4:34.21s.

Rosa Kutty was there at the start line, but she pulled out within 10 metres saying she was concentrating on the 4x400m. Kutty has already won two gold, in the 400m and 800m. Sunita felt the race would have been closer if Rosa had competed fully.

There were more cheers for Manipur’s Gojen Singh, who also collected his second gold medal of the Games. Gojen added the 5000m gold to his 10,000m triumph, running the last 200m virtually alone, so far ahead was he. Gojen clocked 14:28.06s and Bihar’s Sanjay Gonde was second, more than half a There were two Games records today with Manipur’s Y Bala Devi setting the first in the 10 Km walk for women in 51 minutes 56.0 seconds, well ahead ofPunjab’s Paramjit Kaur, who timed 52:04.0. Jasmin Kaur, also of Punjab was third.

The second Games record came in the 110m hurdles for men where Punjab’s Jagjit Singh clocked 14.59s, which bettered Linesh Pathak’s record of 14.84s. Tamil Nadu’s Jaya Kumar timed 14.79s and T Rajesh Kumar of Kerala was third in 14.83s.

The TN 4 x 100m relay team missed a Games record by a small margin. The quartet Jayakumar, T Durai, Rajesh and Jaychandran clocked 41.17s while Services took the silver and Delhi the bronze. The women’s sprint relay gold went to Tamil Nadu with Bengal second.

Results

Men

5,000m: 1. Gojen Singh (Man) 14:28.06s, 2. Sanjay Gonde (Bih) 15:01.0s, 3. Aman Saini (Bih) 15:08.80s;

110m hurdles: Jagjit Singh (Pun) 14.59s, 2. Jay Kumar (TN) 14.79s, 3. T Rajesh Kumar (Ker) 14.83s;

4 x 100m: 1. TN 41.17s, 2. Services 41.37s, 3. Delhi 41.38s.

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Pole vault: 1. Ramdhari Singh (Ser) 4.70m, 2. Geesh Kumar (Ker) 4.60m, 3. Samsher Singh (Har) 4.60m;

Triplejump: 1. D Venkaiah (Ser) 15.48m, 2. Robert George (Bih) 15.47m, 3. Rajesh (TN) 15.31m;

Shot put: 1. Yogesh (Del) 17.75m, 2. Jaivir Singh (Ser) 16.69m, 3. Kulwinder Singh (Pun) 16.60m;

Discus: 1. Anil Kumar (Del) 50.58m, 2. Deo Kumar Singh (Bih) 49.26m, 3. Vipin Kumar (UP) 48.52m.

Women

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1500m: Sunita Rani (Pun) 4:21.45, MA Molly (Ker) 4:34.21, Geeta Manral (Delhi) 4:37.24;

10km walk: Y Bala Devi (Mani) 51.56 min (New Games record: PR: 53.27 by Chitra Dhillon (Pun) in 1994); Paramjit Kaur (Pun) 52.04 (BMR), Jasmin Kaur (Pun) 54.03 min.