Railway's Deepmala Devi sets national record in 20km walk

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 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 by Y Bala Devi in Bangalore. 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.

Earlier, Ritu Rani upstaged national record holder Hardeep Kaur for Gold in the women's hammer throw to continue Railways' domination in the championship.

Ritu cleared a distance of 59.23m in her fifth attempt to beat a below par Hardeep of Punjab who had to settle for Silver with a disappointing throw of 56.58m which was far below her national mark of 61.67m which she made here in August, 2002. The meet record of 61.67m also stood in Hardeep's name.

The Bronze in the event also went to Usma Dariyan of Railways who cleared 56.21m.

Another Railwaywoman Sahana Kumari grabbed the Gold in high jump clearing 1.74m, though well below the national record of 1.91m and meet record of 1.81m which stood in the name of Bobby Aloysius.

Tessymol Joseph also of Railways won the Silver with a jump of 1.74m while Harshini Kumari of LIC pocketed the Bronze with a 1.65m jump.

Meanwhile, Services' C Hamza broke Railways monopoly by winning men's 1500m with a timing of 3:44.76 while Sunil Kumar of Railways and Sandeep Kumar of Services coming second and third with 3:51.66 and 3:52.06 respectively.

Hamza's timing could not also come anywhere near the national record of 3:38.00 set by Bahadur Prasad in Chennai in 1995 and fell more than four second short of the meet record of 3:40.06 which also stood in Prasad's name.

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