Defending champions Kerala dominated the opening day's proceedings in the 29th National Junior Athletics championships which got underway at Sree Kanteerava Stadium in Bangalore today. Two meet marks were obliterated today, both by Kerala athletes, as 17 finals went off as scheduled.P U Chitra, the distance running talent from Palakkad, clocked 4 minutes 33.82 secs in junior women's (under-20) 1500m that erased Sunita Rani's 17-year-old meet mark of 4:35.0 from the record books.Another young athlete, 13-year-old Gayathry Sivakumar made an easy sail over 1.55m in the girls' under-14 high jump for the first meet mark of the day.In the under-16 division,bothAnil Sahu of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu jumper Mohamed Akkiel cleared an identical 1.95m with the former declared as winner in the boys' section.Tamil Nadu's Priyadarshini took the top spot in long jump (5.63m) by just one centimetre from Rugma Udhayan of Kerala.At the end of the opening day, Kerala were on top of table with 58 points, followed by Haryana (52) and Tamil Nadu (46).
News On AIR | December 3, 2013 8:55 PM
Kerala dominates in Athletics events on opening day of National Junior c'ship