Punjab girl Navjeet Kaur Dhillon set her second national junior record as she won the shot put event on the final day of the 28th National Junior Athletics Championships here on Wednesday.
Navjeet added shot put gold to her win in discus throw earlier by tossing the newly introduced 3-kg iron ball to a distance of 14.89m to achieve her double national record.
Kerala recaptured the overall title with 465 points and pushed last year’s winners Haryana to runners-up position in 422 points, thanks to the overwhelming performance of their girl athletes.
Haryana, however, had the satisfaction of taking the boys’ crown ahead of hosts Uttar Pradesh.
The five-day meet also saw 17 national records being bettered besides creating 13 new meet records.
The final day’s competition saw three new national records.
Anjana Thamke of Maharashtra won the under-16 400m with an impressive 54.57 secs to eclipse M R Poovamma’s seven year old national and meet record of 55.43s.
Anjana clocked faster than Anu Raghavan of Kerala, who took the junior women’s title in the same distance.
Uttar Pradesh runner Poonam Singh also had the distinction of creating national record double in junior women’s category by winning the 5000m race in a time of 17:22.87 to add her victory in 3000m earlier.
Delhi boy Shakti Solanki, holder of the national mark in boys U-14 shot put event, established yet another record in U-16 category by heaving the 5 kg iron ball to 17.89m.
Distance runner Rahul Kumar Pal, double gold medallist in this year’s Asian Junior Championships in Colombo, received tremendous support from the local crowd as he won 10000m race with a meet record time of 29:34.54.
He barely missed the listed national junior mark of 29:32.68 set by Gojen Singh during the World Junior Championships in Sydney in 1996.
The following were adjudged best athletes in their respective sections. : Jr Men (u-20): Rajesh Kumar Bind (UP, Javelin throw); Youth Boys (u-18): Abhishek Singh (UP, Javelin throw); Boys u-16: Shakti Solanki (Delhi, Shot put); Boys u-14: Saddam Hussain (Har, Shot put); Jr Women (u-20): Bebi Sumaya (Kar, 200m); Youth Girls (u-18): Dutee Chand (Jhar, 200m); Girls u-16: Anjana Thamke (Mah, 400m); Girls u-14: Durga Deore (Mah, 600m).