The forecasted rain hardly dampened the morale of the athletes of the 52nd Open National Athletics Championships at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, though the absence of a few notable Olympians did dismay the spectators. The noteworthy absentees included discus throwers Krishna Poonia and Seema Antil, besides walker KT Irfan.
In a sense their glaring deficiency furnished the aspirants with an opportunity to thrust their stakes at a bigger stage. Long-distance runner Suriya Loganathan of Railways managed just that as she pipped Asian Games gold medalist and national record holder Preeja Sreedharan to gold in 10,000m.
The 23-year-old from Pudukottai, who switched over from 3,000 to 10,000m last year, stopped the clock at 35:18.20, bettering her own previous best of 36.22.3 accomplished last year. Suriya, who was trailing Preeja and Monika Athare until the final phase, improvised herself to out-run both. Preeja led the initial phase before conceding to Monika. Though she reclaimed her lead in the final lap, Suriya took her surprise. Overall, Preeja was hardly in her elements and managed a middling 35:19.40, nearly four minutes inferior to her personal best of 31:50.47. LIC’s Monika came third with 35:19.40. Kavita Raut, who holds the meet record, could not finish the race.
While Railways benefited eight points from their one-two finish, ONGC eked out six in the men’s 10,000m, courtesy Inder Jeet’s gold and Suresh Kumar’s bronze. Inder Jeet marked 29.42.76 to keep his closest competitor, Kheta Ram of Services, at bay. The Services man finished 29.44.00 closely trailed by Suresh Kumar (29.44.00).
The flipside to the nonexistence of stars is the dearth of quality, as evidenced in women’s discus throw. None of the throwers even breached the 50m-mark, which put into perspective the lack of depth. Thus G Pramila’s ordinary hurl, her fifth attempt, fetched her gold. Starting off with a series of sub-45 throws, she gradually hit her strides before managing a best of 49.08m. Rajasthan’s Praveen Kumari wheedled out 47.05m for silver and ONGC’s Navjeet Kaur Dhillon came third with a best of 46.45m.
As appalling were the standards in long jump, without prominent jumpers Mayookha Johny and MA Prajusha skipping the tournament. Subsequently, Maharashtra’s Shradda Ghule’s fifth jump, wherein she struck 6.36, earned her gold. This was the 21-year-old’s best performance, surpassing her previous best of 6.16m achieved at the same venue in 2009. S Delphrani (6.32) and Susan K Joy (5.99) finished second and third respectively.