Chennai: M. A. Prajusha became the only athlete in the meet to bag an individual golden double when she won the triple jump event while defending women 1500m champion Sinimol Paulose was relegated to third place on the concluding day of the 49th National Inter-State National Athletics Championship Saturday.
The 22-year-old Kerala girl, Prajusha, hogged the limelight as she cleared 13.15 metres in her second attempt to win the gold though she fouled her next four attempts.
Tamil Nadu’s G. Gayatri finished second with a 12.93m effort and while Kerala’s Tessemole Joseph (12.87m) collected the bronze. In the 1500m final, all eyes were on Sinimol but the reigning Asian champion, who is yet to fully recover from a viral attack, was forced to settle for a bronze medal.
Delhi’s Sushma won gold in 4:19.14 secs, followed by S. R. Bindu (4:21.10s) of Kerala. Sinimol, representing Jharkhand, clocked 4:22.87 secs to win bronze.
Another highlight of the day was Chatholi Hamza, the front runner in 1500m in the country for a couple of years winning gold in 3:41.62 seconds.
Uttarakhand’s Surendra Singh won the energy sapping 10,000m men’s final (29:47.59s) and qualified for the November 10 to 14 Asian Championship in China.
Prajusha (triple jump), Sushma, Bindu and Sinimol (all in 1500m) booked their berths or the Asian Championships, as also Manjith Kaur (Punjab), Mandeep Kaur (Punjab), Sini Jose (Kerala), Priyanka Panwar (UP) and K. Soujanya (AP), the top five finishers in the women’s 400m.
The men’s 1500m final top four finishers — Chatholi Hamza (Kerala), Sunil Kumar (Haryana), P. Ebinezar (TN) and Naresh Yadav (Kerala) have also made it to the China contingent.
(PTI)
