Siddharth Choudhary & Nikita Kumari rewrite meet records
Bhopal, Sept 17: Siddharth Choudhary (Rajasthan) broke the meet record twice in winning the boys’ Shot Put crown on the opening day of the HSBC 17th National Youth (U18) Athletics Championships 2022 here on Saturday. He went past the 20m mark three times as all podium finishers met the qualifying mark for the Asian Youth Championships in Kuwait next month.
Siddharth qualified for the Asian meet in Kuwait on first visit to the circle when he sent the Shot to 18.94m and came up with had three efforts over 20m – 20.08 on third try, 20.22 on fifth and 20.18 on sixth – to claim the Meet record set at 19.84m by Amandeep Singh in 2019. Uttar Pradesh’s Akash Yadav and Ashutosh Dubey also met the qualifying mark set at 18.59m.
Discus Thrower Nikita Kumari (Rajasthan) accounted for the second Meet Record, sending the Discus flying over 46.07m. She broke the 45.08m mark set by Prabhjot Kaur in Madurai 13 years ago. Anisha (Delhi) and Arshdeep Kaur Khangura (Punjab) also bettered the Asian Championships qualifying mark set at 43.00m, raising the number of qualifiers to eight.
Sabita Toppo, a product of the Reliance Foundation Odisha High Performance Centre in Bhubaneswar, was impressive when winning the girls’ 100m Hurdles in 14.15 seconds. She was not fluttered by the series of recalls before the race finally got under way and broke the beam well inside the 14.44 second mark laid down as the qualifying mark for the Asian mee.
The competition got under way at the Tatya Tope Stadium with Sunita Devi (Uttar Pradesh) claiming the girls’ 3000m Gold in 10:04.07. She came home inside the Asian Youth qualifying mark set at 10:06.94. She pulled away from the rest of the pack with four and a half laps to go. Haryana’s Vanshika set off in pursuit but could not sustain the challenge.
The results (finals):
Boys U18
3000m: 1. Gaurav Bhaskar Bhosale (Maharashtra) 8:48.94; 2, Sujit Tikode (Maharashtra) 8:49.44; 3. Vinod Singh (Madhya Pradesh) 8:51.05.
110m Hurdles: 1. Sandip Vinod Gond (Maharashtra) 14.00 seconds; 2. Nayan Pradip Sarde (Maharashtra) 14.29; 3. Anuj Kumar (Haryana) 14.34.
Triple Jump: 1. Kothuri Pranay (Telangana) 14.83m; 2. Mohammed Atta Sazid (Haryana) 14.68; 3. Deepak (Delhi) 14.38.
Shot Put: 1. Siddharth Choudhary (Rajasthan) 20.22m (New Meer Record. Old: 19.85, Amandeep Singh, Raipur, 2019); 2. Akash Yadav (Uttar Pradesh) 19.78; 3. Ashutosh Dubey (Uttar Pradesh) 18.86.
Girls U18
3000m: 1. Sunita Devi (Uttar Pradesh) 10:04.07; 2. Vanshika (Haryana) 10:11.72; 3. Sanjana Singh (Haryana) 10:16.77.
100m Hurdles: 1. Sabita Toppo (Odisha) 14.15 seconds; 2. Shiny Gladssia (Tamil Nadu) 14.67; 3. Aerroalla Pranathi (Telangana) 14.72.
Discus Throw: 1. Nikita Kumari (Rajasthan) 46.07m (New Meet Record. Old: 45.08, Prabhjot Kaur, Madurai, 2009); 2. Anisha (Delhi) 44.44; 3. Arshdeep Kaur Khangura (Punjab) 43.95.
Hammer Throw: 1. Sakshi (Haryana) 46.94m; 2. Annamaria Terin (Kerala) 45.89; 3. Ramisha Makvana (Gujarat) 41.44.
