Tumkur (Karnataka), April 25: Three national junior records highlighted the second day of the National Junior (U-20) Athletics Federation Competition here on Saturday.
On a day when several athletes achieved new heights, Army’s Asian junior silver medalist Nitin Gupta set a new benchmark in men’s U-20 5,000m race walk.
Gupta became the first Indian race walker to break the 19 minutes barrier in junior men’s 5,000m race walk. On his way to gold, he clocked 18:54.37, lowering his own national junior record of 19:24.48 set last year in Patna.
His Saturday’s performance was also better than the Asian U-20 Athletics Championships meet record.
Uttar Pradesh long jumper Shahnavaz Khan also entered his names in record books, while Kerala’s talented sprinter Mohammed Ashfaq hogged the limelight by breaking national junior record in the men’s 400m.
Ranjana Yadav of Madhya Pradesh also improved the national junior record in the women’s 5,000m race walk. Her gold-winning time was 23:22.12. The previous record of 23:43.58 was set by Manisha last year in Bhubaneswar.
Away from distance events, the men’s 400m track race was the most exciting event on day-two of the competition. Of the eight finalists, six crossed the finish line under the Asian junior qualification mark 47.53 seconds.
But it was Kerala’s talented sprinter Ashfaq who hogged the limelight by breaking national junior record. His winning time of 46.05 seconds was better than Amoj Jacob’s junior national record time of 46.26 seconds set in 2017.
The field was strong in the women’s 400m. Seven of the eight finalists bettered the Asian junior qualification mark of 55.99 seconds. Neeru Pathak of NCOE Trivandrum won gold with a time of 54.31 seconds.
Tamil Nadu pole vaulter Kavinraja S, the gold winner, also improved his national mark to 5.12m. His previous junior national record was 5.11m.
At the end of the day, Shahnavaz recorded a massive jump of 8.23m, improving the national junior record of 8.20m set by Murali Sreeshankar in 2018. (PTI)
