ADLS Sunshine students with their principal. (Srinivas)

Jamshedpur, Nov. 13: Jharkhand has sprinted ahead of Kerala.

Breaking a record created by the southern state and scripting one of their own, students from the state, for the first time, have emerged winners at the 13th National Athletics Championship held at Maninagar in Gujarat. The event was held from November 8 to 10.

About 74 students from 34 schools in Ranchi, Bokaro, Dhanbad and Jamshedpur and one school from Patna had participated at the athletics meet, organised by the Association of Schools for the Indian School Certificate (ASISC) and hosted by Seventh Day School in Maninagar.

Together, they have won around 50 medals, putting Jharkhand at the top of the score card with 126 points followed by Kerala with 118 points. Of them, about 27 students are from the steel city and 25 from the state capital with St Xavier’s School, Ranchi, becoming the overall champions.

Participants from St Xavier’s won 10 gold medals, two silver and one bronze. Lauding the performance, principal Father Ajit Khess said: “One should no focus only on academics. Sports help groom the overall personality of a child.”

Some of the other participating schools from Ranchi included St Francis School, Sacred Heart Convent, Bishop Westcott Boys’ School, Bishop Westcott Girls’ School and Seventh Day Adventist School.

If students of St Xavier’s, Ranchi, became the overall champions, those from ADLS Sunshine School, Jamshedpur, made two new records at the meet. Akash Kumar won a gold medal for walking 5km in just 26.53 seconds in the senior boys’ section, bettering previous year’s record of 28.01 by a Kerala student.

In the junior boys’ section, Ajay Kumar Singh, a student from the same school, also won gold for running 400m in 53.05 seconds. Last year’s record was 55.07, again scripted by a participant from Kerala. Ajay bagged another gold in the 800m race. This apart, ADLS Sunshine brought home three silver medals in 100m hurdles, 3km walk and 4x100m relay.

“Such national-level sports events should be held on a much larger scale. It adds to the achievement list of students, which can later come to use when they seek admission in other institutions,” said N.D. Ghosh, the sports co-ordinator of ADLS Sunshine School and the regional coach for Bihar and Jharkhand.

DBMS English School also put up a brilliant feat — gold medals in 800m race (senior girls) and javelin throw (both senior and junior sections) and silver medals in 400m (senior girls), high jump (senior boys) and 400x100m relay.

The gold glory continued as Carmel Junior College bagged one in 1,500m race (junior boys), 400x100m relay (senior girls) and 400m (junior boys).

The girls of Sacred Heart Convent School kept up the success show. They returned home with a gold medal in shot put (senior girls) and a bronze in high jump (senior girls).

The senior boys of Little Flower School came second in 400x100m relay to bag a silver while the senior girls got a bronze in javelin throw. Gulmohur High School and Kerala Public School, Kadma, each won a silver medal in 4x100m relay (senior boys) and 4X100m relay (senior girls), respectively.