Shanthi upsets Pinki Pramanik, Hari Shankar sets new meet record

New Delhi, Oct 8 (UNI) Soundarajan Shanthi came up with the season's best to outrun South Asian Games (SAG) gold medallist Pinki Pramanik of Railways in the women's 800m race in the National Open Athletics Championships here today.

The Tamil Nadu girl, who won silver in the event behind Pinki in SAG, clocked her career best timing of 2:02.21sec to Pinki's 2:03.37sec.

The bronze was won by Sinimol Paulose of Steel Plants with a timing of 2:04.07sec.

Shanthi later told UNI that her hard trainning at SAI, Bangalore, helped her perform her best here.

''I was confident before the start of the race that I could beat Pinki and I did that now. My hard work at Bangalore and good work by my coach paid off,'' Shanthi said.

Pinki, meanwhile, said she was not fully fit before today's race.

''I was having fever till yesterday. It became better today and my coach told me to run,'' Pinki said.

In another high point of the day, Railways' Hari Shankar Roy erased the meet record of 2:17m in men's high jump to win gold by clearing 2:18m but failed to touch his own national record of 2:25m set in Singapore in September 2004.

Railways made it a row with Vinod Kumar winning silver with a jump of 2:14m while Benedict Starly bagged bronze with 2:11m.

Results: Men: 200m race: 1. Vishal Saxena (Railways, 21.33sec) 2. B G Nagraj (Railways, 21.35sec) 3. A Aravind (Railways, 21.46sec) 400m race: 1. Joseph Abraham (Police, 51.48sec) 2. Ranjodh Singh (Police, 52.28sec) 3. Satinder Singh (Punjab, 52.50sec) 800m race: 1. R Rajeev (Railways, 1:48.89sec) 2. Sajeesh Joseph (Railways, 1:50.34sec) 3. Jaskaran (haryana, 1:52.14sec) High Jump: 1. Hari Shankar Roy (Railways, 2.18m) 2. Vinod Kumar (Railways, 2.14m) 3. Benedict Starly (Railways, 2.11) Discus Throw: 1. V Singh (Services, 52.84m) 2. Harpreet Singh (ONGC, 52.56m) 3. Rambir Singh (Services, 52.20m) Women: 200m Run: 1. Chitra Soman (ONGC, 24.08 sec) 2. Rakhi Saha (Railways, 24.54 sec) 3. H.M. Jyothi (Karnataka, 24.62 sec) 800m race: 1. Soundarajan Shanthi (Tamil Nadu, 2:02.21sec) 2. Pinki Pramanik (Railways, 2:03.37sec) 3. Sinimol Paulose (Steel Plants, 2:04.07sec) 400m hurdles: 1. Pooja Jakhar (Delhi, 59.28sec) 2. Baljeet Kaur (Railways, 59.83m) 3. Babita Singh (railways, 1:00.26sec) Long Jump: 1. J J Shobha (Railways, 6.32m) 2. G G Pramila (Railways, 6.19m) 3. Shalu Choudhary (Delhi, 5.92m) Shot Put: 1. Saroj Sihag (Police, 14.52m) 2. Manpreet Kaur (Punjab, 13.99m) 3. Saraswathy (Railways, 13.48m) UNI PDS AB BST2112