Sinimo, Hamza, Surendra, Deepamala steal show

Chennai, Nov 5 (UNI) Record-breaking performances were at a premium with the track and field conditions not conducive for the athletes to go all out and as the curtain came down on the 46th national and interstate senior athletics championship at the Nehru stadium here today.

Only L Deepamala Devi of Manipur, Ranjit Maheswary of Kerala and Surendra Singh of Uttaranchal managed to come up with new meet records. Surendra broke a 11-year old beat record of Bhadur Prashad winning the 5000 M run, clocking 13:59.46.

Deepamala, the national champion won the 20 Km walk Gold erasing Y Bala Devi of West Bengal's standing record. Deepa, who holds the national record in this event clocked 1:39:00 eclipsing the !:44:37.40 achieved by Bala in 2005.

Supriya Adhak of Maharashtra took the Silver while Punjab's Sandeep Kaur won the Bronze.

The other new meet record was set by Ranjit while winning the men's triple jump with 16.50 m. He eclipsed Amarjeet Singh-Punjab's old record of 16.44m set in July 2004. Amarjeet, who had the mortification of his record being eclipsed took the silver at 16.16 while Kerala's E Alex placed third for the Bronze at 15.93.

Ranjit is an emerging star in this event and a product of SAI.

(Pick up from SPM 25) UNI VV DH RN2059