BHUBANESWAR: Teenager Pooja dominated the show in the U-18 Women’s Heptathlon by winning the gold medal with 5102 points in the National Junior Athletics Championship 2024 at Kalinga Stadium here on Tuesday.
On her debut in the event a national record, the Haryana athlete broke the record held by R Khatun with 4357 points. The silver and bronze medals were claimed by Sriteja Tholem of Telangana and Khusi of Haryana with 5087 and 4359 points, respectively.
“It’s a matter of great satisfaction for us," Balwan Patra, Pooja's coach expressed his views. "She made her debut in the heptathlon event here and she topped the podium with a new national record. As per the planning, she moved event by event and the final result was excellent.
In the upcoming All India University meet she will participate in both the high jump and heptathlon. Pooja is very young and dedicated to her hard work, in future, she will win an international medal for the country,” he added.
In other fixtures, the top four finishers of the U-20 men’s 5000 bettered the previous meet record of 14:13.95 set by Sunil Dawar in the year 2021 at Guwahati. Vinod Singh of Madhya Pradesh won the gold with (14:12.76), Gourav Bhosle of Maharashtra got silver with (14:13.06), Vivek Chand of Gujarat (14:13.46) won the bronze, and Vikash Kumar Bind of Madhya Pradesh finished fourth with (14:13.52).
Similarly, the top five finishers of the U-16 girls' pentathlon event shattered the previous NR of 3616 points of B Vyshali. The gold, silver and bronze medals were bagged by Sathvika Sakthivel of Tamil Nadu (3884), Baddi Vyshali of Telangana (3814) and Anamika Ajesh of Kerala (3811) respectively.
In the U-14 girls javelin event, Minakshi of Haryana scraped the old national record of 36.50m and won the gold medal with 46.81m and rewrote the NR. Rahi Chauvan of Maharashtra won the silver medal with a throw of 38.54m and Anushree Biswas of West Bengal claimed the bronze medal with (36.01m).