Deepmala sets national record, Sureka creates new meet record

New Delhi, Oct 6 (UNI) L Deepmala Devi of Railways set a new national record in women's 20 km walk with a timing of 1:39:30.5hr while team mate V S Sureka created a new meet record in Pole Vault clearing 3.85m in the 46th National Open Athletics Championship here today.

Deepmala thus became the first Indian woman to walk 20km distance on road as well as on track in sub one hour 40 minute barrier, having achieved the feat on road in the National Endurance Competition here in January this year.

The Railwaywoman bettered the three-year-old national record of 1:43:06hr set in Bangalore by Y Bala Devi (1:58:52.8hr) who herself finished fourth today. The meet record of the event stood in the name of Jasmine Kaur with a timing of 1:48:28.80.

Amindeep Kaur of Punjab came second with 1:48:52.3 while Maharashtra's Supriya Adhak bagged the Bronze with a timing of 1:52:04.7hr.

In the Pole Vault, Sureka erased Chetna Solanki's less than one year old record of 3.70m by clearing 3.85m, but fell well short of national record 4.05m which also stood in the name of Solanki.

However, the disappointment of the day was SAF Games gold medallist Pinki Pramanik's below par performance in women's 400m race. Though the Railwaywoman won gold with 53.06sec, she nowhere came near Manjit Kaur's 2004 record of 51.05sec and K M Beenamol's meet mark of 51.90 set in 2002.

Satti Geetha, also of Railways, won the Silver with 55.48sec while Mandeep Kaur of ONGC won bronze with 55.65sec.

In another much anticipated race, Railways A Aravind missed out the meet record of 10.37sec in men's 100m by timing 10.44sec while the Silver and the Bronze went to Vishal Saxena (10.64sec) of Railways and Sameer Mon (10.66sec) of Services.

With some of top-ranked athletes skipping the championship, most of the events of the third day saw below par results well wide off the meet or national records.

One such show was Railwaywoman Deepti Jose's Gold-winning effort in 100m race clocking 11.84sec ahead of Ranjita Roy (11.92sec), also of Railways, and H M Jyothi (12.02sec) of Karnataka.

Another poor show came in men's 110m hurdles with H Rohit of Railways clocking 14.68sec to win Gold while Rajesh Mathew (14.72sec) of Services and Gulzar Singh (14.83sec) of Services came second and third respectively.

In men's 400m run, Joseph Abraham won gold with 46.70sec while Aboo Backar (46.91sec) of Services and Bhupinder Singh (46.95sec) of ONGC won Silver and Bronze in yet another poor performance by athletes.

In men's long jump also, Railwayman Maha Singh's Gold-winning effort of 7.74m, team mate Shiv Shankar Yadav's 7.68m to win Silver and Serviceman R Rajesh's 7.66m to win Bronze came nowhere near meet or national mark.

Megha Pardeshi of Railways cleared 49.44m to win Gold in women's Javelin throw while team mate Saraswathy (46.76m) won Silver and Gurpreet Kaur (45.87m) of Haryana won Bronze though all of their performances were wide off the mark of any meet or national record.

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