Dehradun, Feb 12: Javelin thrower Sachin Yadav of Uttar Pradesh, 18-year-old high jumper Pooja Singh of Haryana and long distance runner Sawan Barwal of Himachal Pradesh rewrote National Games records and won gold medals on the concluding day of athletics competition here on Wednesday.
In the absence of the likes of Neeraj Chopra and Kishore Jena, 25-year-old Yadav sent his spear to a Games-record distance of 84.39m in his fifth attempt to win the gold and establish himself as one of the top javelin throwers in the country.
He bettered the earlier Games record of 82.23m set by Rajinder Singh in the 2015 edition.
“My goal was to achieve the World Athletics automatic qualification mark (85.50m) but missed it,” Yadav said at the post-event interaction.
“I’m close to my goal and should be able to achieve 85.50m in the next competition.” Yadav’s 84.39m now ranks as the fifth career-best throw by an Indian after Chopra (89.94m), Jena (87.54m), Shivpal Singh (86.23m) and Davinder Singh Kang (84.57m).
Uttar Pradesh swept the medals with Rohit Yadav — another member of 80m club — winning the silver with a performance of 80.47m while state-mate Vikash Sharma took home the bronze with 79.33m.
It was Yadav’s fourth 80m-plus throw, having joined the elite club in 2023 with a 80.27m during the Federation Cup. In June, he won the title in the Indian Grand Prix 3 with a throw of 82.69m, which was his earlier personal best before Wednesday’s record-breaking effort.
He threw 80.04m during the National Open Championships qualification round in September last year.
Daughter of a mason from Fatehbad district of Haryana, Pooja cleared 1.84m to defend the women’s high jump gold she had won in the 2023 edition, bettering the earlier Games record of 1.83m set by Swapna Barman of West Bengal in the 2022 edition of the Games.
Pooja, who has a personal best of 1.85m – a national U20 record – which she had produced last year, used to train on makeshift high jump pit made up of sacks of hay when she started the sport.
She won a silver medal at the Asian U20 Championships in 2023, a gold in the Asian U18 Championships the same year and finished sixth at the Hangzhou Asian Games last year.
Gobika K of Tamil Nadu won the silver after clearing 1.79m while Abhinaya Shetty (1.77m) of Karnataka took home the bronze.
Barwal won the men’s 5000m in a time of 13 minute and 45.93 seconds, bettering the earlier Games record of 13:50.05s set by G Lakshmanan of Services in the 2015 edition. It was his second gold and second Games record in this edition.
He had clinched the men’s 10,000m title on Saturday with a Games record time of 28:49.93s, bettering the earlier mark of 28:54.29s set by Gulveer Singh in the 2022 edition in Gujarat. The 26-year-old Barwal was a bronze medal winner at the 2023 Asian Half Marathon race. He also won the 2024 Delhi Half Marathon title among the Indians.
Gagan Singh of Haryana was second with a time of 14:00.04s while Sunil Dawar of Madhya Pradesh finished third with 14:01.33s.
In the women’s 400m hurdles, Tamil Nadu’s Vithya Ramraj pocketed her third successive National Games gold, adding to her top of podium finish in the 2022 and 2023 editions of the Games.
Ramraj, who jointly holds the national record of 55.42 seconds along with the legendary PT Usha, clocked 58.11 seconds to win the gold.
The 26-year-old Ramraj, a member of the Indian 4x400m relay team that took part in the 2024 Paris Olympics, joined women’s 100m hurdler Jyothi Yarraji and men’s 110m hurdler Tejas Shirse in winning gold in three successive Games.
It was, however, a below-par performance from Ramraj as her timing was more than one second off the mark from her Games record of 56.67 seconds she had set in the 2022 edition.
Tamil Nadu finished 1-2 as Shreevarthani SK took home the silver with a time of 59.86 seconds, while Maharashtra’s Neha Dhabale (1:00.52) secured the bronze. (PTI)
