DEHRADUN, Feb 10: Madhya Pradesh’s Dev Kumar Meena smashed the national record in men’s pole vault event while winning the gold medal with an effort of 5.32m on the third day of athletics competition at the National Games here Monday.
The 19-year-old Meena bettered the earlier national record of 5.31m set by Subramani Siva while winning the gold in the 2022 Games in Gujarat.
Meena defended the gold he had won in the 2023 edition.
He had won a bronze medal in the Asian U20 Championship last year with an effort of 5.10m. He had also won gold in the Senior Federation Cup National Championships in Bhubaneswar last year.
His earlier personal best was 5.20m while winning the gold at the Indian Open U23 competition in Patna last year.
Born in a farmer’s family at a village in the agricultural belt of Dewas in Madhya Pradesh, the sprinter-turned-pole vaulter was spotted in November 2020 by the talent-search team of the state government.
He was initially selected for short sprints, but later switched to pole vault as he showed more interest in the jumping event. He later trained at the Madhya Pradesh Athletics Academy in Bhopal.
“The journey to a national record has been a long one. My biggest support has been my family and coach,” Meena said after his event.
“I come from a farmer’s family, and reaching this stage has been full of struggles. Today, I wanted to do something extraordinary, and I ended up creating history.” G Reegan (5m) of Tamil Nadu and Kuldeep Kumar (5m) of Uttar Pradesh won the silver and bronze respectively.
In another creditable performance, Anushka Yadav of Uttar Pradesh bettered the women’s hammer throw Games record on way to winning gold with an effort of 62.89m.
The earlier Games record was 62.47m in the name of Tanya Chaudhary of Uttar Pradesh, who had won the event in the 2023 edition.
Tanya finished second on Monday with a throw of 59.74m while Nandini, also from Uttar Pradesh, took the bronze with 58.89m.
In men’s shot put, national record holder Tajinderpal Singh Toor of Punjab expectedly won the gold with a throw of 19.74m.
Defending champion Samardeep Singh Gill (19.38m) of Madhya Pradesh and Prabhkirpal Singh (19.04m), also of Punjab, clinched the silver and bronze respectively.
Toor’s national record stands at 21.77m. He had won gold in the 2022 edition of the Games.
Andhra Pradesh’s Jyothi Yarraji, who had won a gold in women’s 100m hurdles on Sunday, entered the 200m final after winning her heat race with a time of 23.85 seconds.
Of the eight gold medals on offer on the day, Punjab secured three, while Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Services, Tamil Nadu and host Uttarakhand took one each.
Other Results:
Men’s 3000m Steeplechase: Gold: Sumit Kumar (Services) – 8:46.26; Silver: Rohit Verma (Services) – 8:49.01; Bronze: Shankar Lal Swami (Haryana) – 8:49.39.
Men’s 4x400m Relay: Gold: Tamil Nadu (Gitson Dharmaray, Akash Babu, Vasan, Aswin Krishna) – 3:10.61; Silver: Uttarakhand (Pravesh Roshwal, Prakhar Sharma, Sahil Malik, Anu Kumar) – 3:10.85; Bronze: Services (Nowajis Shaikh, Thomas Mathew, Shubham Deshmukh, Rince Joseph) – 3:10.90.
Women’s 3000m Steeplechase: Gold: Ankita (Uttarakhand) – 9:53.63; Silver: Manju Yadav (Madhya Pradesh) – 10:15.70; Bronze: Rebi Pal (Uttar Pradesh) – 10:37.15.
Women’s Triple Jump: Gold: Niharika Vashisht (Punjab) – 13.37m; Silver: NV Sheena (Kerala) – 13.19m; Bronze: Sandra Babu (Kerala) – 13.12m.
Women’s 4x400m Relay: Gold: Punjab (Ramandeep Kaur, Twinkle Chaudhary, Kiranpal Kaur, Rashdeep Kaur) – 3:41.77; Silver: Karnataka (D Gowda, Arpitha EB, Jyothika, Prajna K) – 3:43.89; Bronze: Haryana (Tamanna, Asha, Drishti, Manisha) – 3:45.83. (PTI)