Sports News | Records Tumble on Opening Day of South Asian Junior Athletics Championship

Chennai, Sep 11 (PTI) The Indian contingent made a great start as Pooja and Siddharth Choudhary claimed gold medals with record-breaking performance in their respective events on the opening day of the South Asian Junior Athletics Championship here on Wednesday.

It was 1-2 in the women's 100m sprint for the Indian team, while Sri Lanka won gold and silver in the men's 100m dash. Meet records were also broken in both men and women's 100m race.

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Pooja comfortably won gold at 1.80m, which was better than the previous meet record of 1.75m. She made efforts to improve her national U20 high jump record of 1.83m set recently in Peru at the 2024 World Athletics U20 meet, but failed to cross the bar at 1.84m.

On his way to gold in men's shot put, Siddharth Choudhary hurled the iron ball to a distance of 19.19m, a meet record. Previous record was 18.53m.

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Compatriot Anurag Singh Kaler won silver with a distance of 18.91m. Away from the field events, Sri Lanka dominated the middle distance events.

The fourth edition of South Asian Junior Athletics Championship being held under the aegis of South Asian Athletics Federation (SAAF) will give more opportunity to athletes at the regional level, Lalit Bhanot, president of SAAF said on the sidelines of the competition.

"Regional competitions have its advantage as competitors will have to travel less and at the same time get good competition close to home," Bhanot said.

"All seven SAAF countries are competing here in Chennai," he added.

"More regional events will be conducted in future."

Next month the senior SAAF athletics meet will be held in Ranchi, Jharkhand. The 2024 SAAF cross country will be held in Pakistan.

"The dates of the cross country will be finalised shortly," Bhanot said.

"There is a plan to organise a senior SAAF competition every two years."

Results:

Men

100m: Wijesinghe Merone (Sri Lanka) 10.41 seconds (meet record, previous 10.61 seconds), Weeraratna Dineth (Sri Lanka) 10.49 seconds, Mruthyam Rajaram (India) 10.56 seconds.

800m: HD Shavindu Awishka (Sri Lanka) 1:49.83 seconds (meet record, previous record 1:52.99), Vinod Kumar (India) 1:50.07 seconds, Bopanna Klappa (India) 1:50.45 seconds.

Shot put: Siddharth Choudhary (India) 19.19m (meet record, previous record 18.53m), Anurag Singh Kaler (India) 18.91m, AW Jayavi Ranhidha (Sri Lanka) 15.62m.

Women:

100m: Abinaya Rajarajan (India) 11.77 seconds (meet record, previous record 11.92 seconds), V Sudheeksha (India) 11.92 seconds, S Wijetungage (Sri Lanka) 12.04 seconds.

800m: MGT Abhisheka Premasiri (Sri Lanka) 2:10.17 seconds, Laxmi Priya Kisan (India) 2:10.87 seconds, UM Sansala Himashani S (Sri Lanka) 2:12.13 seconds.

High jump: Pooja (India) 1.80m (meet record, previous meet record 1.75m), DK Timeshi (Sri Lanka) 1.65m, VP Nethra Samadi (Sri Lanka) 1.65m.

(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)