Bengaluru

The Winners of gold medals in men and women’s 35 km race walk entered their names in the record books on the penultimate day of the 63rd National Open Athletics Championships here at Bengaluru’s Sree Kanteerava Stadium on Sunday.

On their way to winning gold medals, Amit of Haryana and Payal of Railway Sports, improved the meet record in the grueling 35km race walking event.

Amit clocked 2:38:00.00 to better the previous time of 2:39:05 set by Ram Babu in 2022.

While Payal clocked 3:02:24 to improve her own meet mark of 3:04.48 set in 2022.

Away from the road race, there was excitement at the throwing arena. Madhya Pradesh’s promising thrower Samardeep Singh Gill pre-event plan to break 20m barrier in men’s shot put might take time as he fell short of his target to settle for gold at 19.27m.

Hammer throw gold went to Ravi of Railway Sports. His best throw was 66.41m.

In the women’s 800m preliminary round both KM Chanda of Railway Sports and Twinkle of Punjab, two prominent runners, were through to the final. While KM Deeksha of Madhya Pradesh, fancied to win the title, skipped the heats.

On Monday, focus will be on the women’s 400m hurdles final.

R Vithya Ramraj, the 26 years old Asian Games medalist had a good run in 2023 season and narrowly missed PT Usha’s long standing national record of 55.42 seconds in the 400m hurdles.

On Sunday she was a comfortable winner in the heats. The meet record of 56.80 seconds in 400m hurdles was recorded by PT Usha in 1994.

The domestic meet is sponsored by NEB Sports.

Results

Men

High jump: Jomon Joy (Kerala) 2.14m, Aadarsh Ram (Railway Sports) 2.11m, Rohit (Haryana) 2.11m.

Long jump: Arya S (Railway Sports) 7.89m, Muhammed Yahiya (Kerala) 7.78m, Jagroop (Punjab) 7.65m.

Shot put: Samardeep Singh Gill (Madhya Pradesh) 19.27m, Abhilash Saxena (Madhya Pradesh) 18.53m, Dhanveer Singh (SSCB) 18.51m.

Hammer throw: Ravi (Railway Sports) 66.41m, Ashish Jakhar (SSCB) 64.87m, Nitesh Poonia (Railway Sports) 64.85m.

35km race walk: Amit (Haryana) 2:38:00.00 (meet record), Vijay Vishwakarma (SSCB) 2:39:13.00, Eknath Turambekar (Railway Sports) 2:39:36.00.

4x100m relay: Odisha 39.65 seconds, Railway Sports 39.82 seconds, SSCB 39.99 seconds.

Women

35km race walk: Payal (Railway Sports) 3:02:24 (meet record), Ramandeep Kaur (Railway Sports) 3:08:22, Bandana Patel (Uttar Pradesh) 3:09:31.

4x100m relay: Karnataka 45.21 seconds, Railway Sports 45.29 seconds, Odisha 45.93 seconds.