Thiruvananthapuram: Controversial teen sprinter Dutee Chand cornered glory by clinching the women’s 100m gold with a new meet record as athletes continued to raise the bar in the blue-riband track and field events of the 35th National Games here on Wednesday.
In overall standings, Services Sports Control Board (SSCB) remained the undisputed numero uno on the 11th day of competitions with 109 medals (68 gold, 19 silver and 22 bronze). Haryana rose to the second spot with 71 medals (30 gold, 26 silver and 17 bronze) while Maharashtra slipped to third on account of lesser gold medals with a total tally 103 27 gold, 40 silver and 36 bronze).
The 100m sprints were lined up early in the evening finals and as was expected, Odisha’s Dutee displayed blazing form to break the meet record for a third time in the Games and comfortably notch up the women’s gold with an effort of 11.76sec.
“The weather here has really helped my performance,” said the 19-year-old, who is fighting a legal battle to get an international ban on her lifted for failing a controversial gender test.
Kerala’s Santhini Vallikkad stopped the clock at 11.84sec to win the silver, while Maharashtra’s Rashmi Sheregar was a close third with a timing of 11.87sec.
Among the men, Haryana’s Dharambir stunned one and all by breaching the 100m meet record of 10.52sec to snatch the gold with a timing of 10.46sec.
The men’s 400m event also had a new meet record when SSCB’s Arokia Rajeev finished the race in 46.40sec to beat the previous mark of 46.97sec set by Paramjit Singh back in 1997. He finished way ahead of the field in which, Haryana’s Lalit Mathur (47.04sec) and West Bengal’s Chandan Bauri (47.41) ended up being the respective silver and bronze medal winners.
There was a slight glitch at the start of the women’s 400m race when the starter gun malfunctioned, prompting the organisers to assemble the athletes all over again. But once they were off the mark, Kerala’s Anilda Thomas left everyone behind to win the gold medal in a meet record-equalling 52.71sec, which was set by K M Beenamol in 2001.
A new meet record was also set in women’s pole vault when Tamil Nadu’s Surekha Babu touched the 4m mark for the first time in the history of the Games. Surekha cleared excatly 4m to clinch the gold. Kerala pocketed the silver and bronze through Dija Cherian (3.60m) and Sinju Prakash (3.40m).
The 1500m men’s race was won by Uttarakhand’s Ravinder Tautela (3:51.96sec) ahead of Kerala’s Sajeesh Joseph (3:52.08sec).
In women’s long jump event, Kerala’s Neena Varakil took home the gold medal by clearing 6.39m.
SSCB’s Dharamraj Yadav was crowned the new men’s discus throw champion after he hurled the discus to 57.44m.
The 20km racewalk took place in the early hours of the day and Punjab’s Baljinder Singh won the men’s gold by clocking 1:26:24.20sec, while a new meet record was made in the women’s event when Rajasthan’s Sapna clocked 1:40:35.70sec to breach the previous mark of 1:41.08sec created by Assam’s L Deepmala Devi in 2007.
The hockey competition came to an end in Kollam with SSCB notching up the men’s gold and Punjab claiming the women’s top honours. SSCB hammered Odisha 7-2 to nail the gold. Punjab’s women, meanwhile, got the better of Haryana 3-1.
The cycling events concluded with Punjab’s Amrit Singh setting a new Games record in the 1km Time Trial Elite men’s race by clocking 1:09:111sec to clinch the gold medal. In fact, Punjab swept the podium with Amarjit Singh (1:10.136sec) and Gurbaj Singh (1:11.679sec) settling for the second and third position.The boxing competition in Thrissur was dominated by SSCB with former youth medallist Durga Rao Vankala (56kg) beating Aman Thakur to enter the semifinals and be assured of a medal along with . (PTI)
National Games Medal Tally
State Name Gold Silver Bronze Total
Services SCB 68 19 22 109
Haryana 30 26 17 73
Maharashtra 27 40 36 103
Kerala 27 31 36 94
Punjab 19 27 25 71
Madhya Pradesh 19 17 27 63
Manipur 15 14 17 46
Tamil Nadu 12 10 15 37
Gujarat 10 4 5 19
Karnataka 8 15 18 41
Telangana 6 9 5 20
Assam 6 4 9 19
Jharkhand 6 2 8 16
Uttar Pradesh 5 27 23 55
Odisha 5 5 1 11
Andhra Pradesh 5 3 6 14
Tripura 5 0 0 5
Delhi 4 9 23 36
Rajasthan 4 5 2 11
Andaman Nicobar 4 2 1 7
West Bengal 3 11 30 44
Chhattisgarh 2 4 2 8
Jammu Kashmir 2 1 4 7
Chandigarh 1 2 13 16
Uttarakhand 1 2 8 11
Mizoram 1 1 0 2
Arunachal Pradesh 1 1 0 2
Bihar 0 2 5 7
Goa 0 2 5 7
Himachal Pradesh 0 1 0 1
Meghalaya 0 1 0 1
Total Medals 296 297 363 956