CHENNAI: The 400m sprint wasn’t as close as expected, and no national records were broken on the final day of the 49th Inter-State senior national athletics.
However, gold-medallist Manjeet Kaur and runner-up Mandeep Kaur clocked their seasonal bests.
Manjit Kaur bettered her goldmedal winning effort in Bhopal with another stellar runner. The national record holder, who had timed 53.62 in Bhopal, improved that to 52.74 on Saturday. At no point was she tested, even by her persevering compatriot and relay partner Mandeep.
Likewise, Mandeep too had been bettering her timings. She had pulled midway through her last race in this strip — the third leg of the Indian GP — but she clocked 53.02.
She was a leeway ahead of reigning Asian champion Sini Jose, who timed 53.69. However, Chitra K Som a n was last in the eight-woman fray.
The top five attained the qualification cut (54.11) for the Asian Track and Field Championship, but most likely only two would book their tickets to China after a selection trial. Mandeep and Manjit are the possible entrants. Contrastingly, the men’s 400m event was a closelyfought affair, with the first three finishing inside 47 seconds. Bhopal gold-medalist SK Mortaza clasped another one, this time clocking 46.66.
However, the promising Bibin Mathew produced his worst result of the season (46.89) and emerged third behind Harpreet Singh. Apparently, the 22-year-old Bibin hadn’t recovered from a bout of fever, which had hampered him in Bhopal.
Joseph Abraham, the national record holder in hurdles, finished fifth.
Sustaining a sizeable lead throughout, Chatoli Hamza topped the 1,500m grid. He compassed the distance in 3:41.62, a good five seconds adrift of Sunil Kumar. Delhi’s Sushma Devi took gold in the women’s 1,500m as the seasoned Sinimole Poulose fetched only bronze.
Leaping 13.15 in her second attempt, triple jumper MA Prajusha bagged her second gold of the championship (she also won long jump).
However, she fouled her four other jumps, and hence missed out on surpassing her own personal best of 13.54 that she achieved in Kochi this year. Tamil Nadu’s G Gayathry followed up her gold in hurdles with silver in triple jump. But otherwise, the quality of triple jumpers was quite pedestrian.