Defending champions Tata Steel topped the table with 59 points on the inaugural day of All India Inter Steel Plants Athletics Championship at JRD Tata Sports Complex in Jamshedpur on Wednesday.

Indian Steel Plant (Burnpur), which had emerged the runner-up in the last edition of the sports meet held in this steel city, ranked second with 42 points in their kitty. Alloy Steel Plant (Durgapur) finished third with 24 points.

The championship was declared open by Sudhanshu Kumar, the chief of Adityapur Toll Bridge Company Limited.

As many as 250 players from eight steel plants — Alloy Steel Plant (Durgapur), Durgapur Steel Plant, Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, Rourkela Steel Plant, Bhilai Steel Plant, Bokaro Steel Plant, Indian Steel Plant (Burnpur) and Tata Steel are vying for top honours in 21 events.

The three-day championship is being organised by the Tata Steel sports department. Arjuna awardee Bagicha Singh has been nominated as the meet director, while Kamlendu Mishra of Alloy Steel is the championship observer.

On Day 1, host Tata Steel won top slots through Vikas Kathiyan (1500m) and Ajay Kumar Singh (400m).

The experienced Kathiyan breezed past Prem Kunj of Bhilai Steel Plant to finish first in 04:12:08 seconds. Kunj had clocked 04:13:00 seconds. Debendra Kumar Yadav of Indian Steel Plant (ISP) managed the third spot with a timing of 04:14:00 seconds.

Singh, a cadet of Tata Athletics Academy (TAA), clocked 49:69 seconds to claim the top position. He tripped teammate Johanson Sidhu (49:72 seconds) and ISP’s Arin Choudhury (50:10 seconds).

In the 10,000 metres, the steel major’s Sridhar B. Chetri finished behind ISP’s Hafisul Mandal. The latter bagged the first slot with a timing of 33:02 seconds, while Chetri managed 33:57 seconds. Tata Steel’s Kailash Nath Yadav, also a TAA cadet, finished third with 34:42:07 seconds.

Tata Steel also bagged the discus throw third slot, thanks to Chirag Amin who hurled the iron ball to a distance of 34 metres to finish behind Visakhapatnam Steel’s K. Durga Rao (41.35m) and Rourkela Steel’s Samit Samal (36.40m).

Alloy Steel’s A. Kumar claimed the top slot in the 110-metre hurdles by breasting the tape in 15:09 seconds, while ISP’s Debashish Debnath and Rourkela’s Sandip Bour finished second (15:19 secs) and third (15:48 secs), respectively.

ASP athlete S. Oraon leaped to the long jump first position with 6.68 metres, while ISP’s Arup Patra (6.66m) and Jaydul Islam (6.65m) ranked second and third, respectively.