Pune, Jan 13 (PTI) Balakumar Nithin catapulted himself among the country's top sprinters, capturing a golden double in the athletics competition in the Khelo India Youth Games.

His under-21 200m gold medal-winning time of 21.57 seconds this afternoon would have fetched him a top-16 rank in India last year, a media release said.

"I had done everything right in practise. And having won the 100m despite a bad start, I was confident that I could complete the double," Nithin was quoted as saying in the release.

Meanwhile, Karnataka's AT Daneshwari also completed the sprint double, winning the girls under-21 200m in 24.58 seconds.

She was, however, overshadowed by Maharashtra's Avantika Narale.

The under-17 runner, who missed out on the 100m final, scripted a run in the 200m final that was faster than Daneshwari's time by a hundredth of a second.

Another performance that raised expectations was a 19.20m shot put effort by Amandeep Singh Dhaliwal (Punjab) in the boys under-17 division.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)