Rajinder Singh smashed the national record in men’s javelin throw, while former Asian champion Renjith Maheshwary nabbed his maiden gold with a new meet mark in triple jump as the athletics arena continued to enthrall on the penultimate day of the 35th National Games here on Thursday.
But what remained unchallenged was the Services Sports Control Board’s (SSCB) domination on the medals table as they remained on top with a tally of 136 (81 gold, 25 silver and 30 bronze so far). Hosts Kerala displaced Haryana from the second spot owing to a strong athletics performance to total 126 (35 gold, 38 silver and 53 bronze). Haryana took the third spot with 34 gold, 30 silver and 23 bronze.
Amid a sea of meet records tumbling, a new national record was created when Haryana’s Rajinder Singh cleared 82.23m to better the 80.72m mark of Anil Kumar Singh (2008). SSCB’s Davinder Singh (75.34m) and Uttar Pradesh’s Vipin Kasana (75.18m) were the respective silver and bronze medallists.
Elsewhere, veteran long-distance runner Preeja Sreedharan bid adieu to the track with a 10,000m silver even as another local lady O P Jaisha stole the limelight by collecting her second gold medal at the Games with a new meet record of 33:08.55sec.
Former Commonwealth Games bronze-medallist Renjith got over the disappointment of disqualification in men’s long jump by shattering the meet record in triple jump for a gold medal.
“I am very happy with how I performed and it has helped me put behind the bad memories of the last one year, especially the Arjuna awards controversy,” Renjith said after the race, referring to the Arjuna award which was withdrawn from him owing to a doping suspension in the past.
“I am looking to resurrect myself. I was aiming to better the meet record and it is very satisfying to have done that,” added the athlete who announced that he would retire after the 2016 Rio Olympics.
There was a massive upset in the men’s 400m hurdles when former Asian Games gold-medallist and the national and meet record holder Joseph Abraham was disqualified for a false start, leading to the crowning of a new champion in SSCB’s Durgesh Kumar much to the disappointment of home fans.
Abraham’s disqualification was a massive disappointment for hosts Kerala, who were banking on him for a sure-shot gold. But Anu Raghavan ensured that the capacity crowd had something to celebrate when she notched up the 400m women’s hurdles gold medal.
The first track and field event of the day was the women’s 100m hurdles and a new meet record was set when Tamil Nadu’s G Gayathry completed the race ion 13.66sec to beat the previous mark of 13.81sec created by Anuradha Biswal in 2002.
The men’s 110m hurdles meet record was also breached and it was SSCB’s Siddhant Thingalaya who broke the record.
“I was just looking to improve my technique and the fantastic weather here helped me perform well than what I expected,” said Thingalaya.
SSCB stole the thunder from Kerala in the men’s high jump as well when Jitin Thomas cleared a new meet record of 2.16m to snatch the gold medal from local favourite Sreenith Mohan.
In other athletics events, SSCB dominated the men’s hammer throw, notching up both the gold and silver through Niraj Kumar (64.62m) and Kaushal Singh (63.36m).
There was a surprise in cycling’s women’s sprint elite race in which Asian medallist and pre-race favourite Deborah had to be content with a silver after losing out on a top spot to Manipur’s C H Rameshwori. Kerala’s lidiyamil M Sunny finished third.
