Soma’s 6162 was well above the qualifying level of 6050

Chennai: Heptathlete Soma Biswas qualified for the Athens Olympics with a whopping 6162 points on the third and concluding day of the 44th inter-state athletics championship on Tuesday.

The 26-year-old Eastern Railway employee was a picture of confidence with almost everyone at the stadium looking forward to her achieving the berth. She collected 2652 points in her last three events (long jump, javelin and 800m), and finished first in all seven. In the four events on Monday (100m hurdles, high jump, shot put and 200m), Soma had logged 3510 points.

Soma’s tally of 6162 was well above the A qualifying standard of 6050.

“Chennai has always been a happy hunting ground for me. Few months before the Sydney Olympics in 2000, I had set my career best of 6186 here, but people were talking about it as a one off achievement.

“I was able to perform well since there was a strong challenge from Pramila Aiyappa. I am happy that I was able to realise my dream of competing in the Athens Games,” an elated Soma said later.

In other events, Gurupreet Singh proved he had no peer in the country to challenge him in his pet events, securing the gold in the 110m hurdles and another in the 400m hurdles. Gurpreet was the lone athlete to score a golden double in the three-day meet.

His statemate and Islamabad SAF Games gold medallist Amarjeet Singh was rhythmic in his golden feat in triple jump clearing a distance of 16.44m surpassing the existing meet record of Kerala’s Suresh Babu, which was equalled by Pritipal Singh in Bangalore in 2002.

Amarjeet was classy in his first jump itself where he cleared a distance of 16.17m. Though he was able to improve it in his fifth trial, Amarjeet surprised everyone with his superb effort (16.44m) for gold medal.

Alex Thomas (15.56m) of Tamil Nadu finished way behind Amarjeet, whose statemate Bhupinder Singh (15.48m) claimed the bronze.

As for Vikas Gowda, he won the discus gold but could not qualify for Athens. It was learnt that he did achieve the qualifying mark of 60.00m but that effort was ruled foul.