Kartik Kumar & Sanjivani Jadhav win gold in men's and women's 10000 m gold in Fed Cup athletics

Kozhikode: Long distance runners Kartik Kumar and Sanjivani Jadhav as well as pole vaulter Rosy Meena Paul produced personal best efforts to claim gold medals on an action-packed opening day of the Federation Cup Senior Athletics Championships here on Saturday.

In the other events of the day, Aishwarya Mishra ran an impressive race to clock a personal best time of 52.41 seconds en route to women's 400m final, while national record holder long jumper M Sreeshankar crossed 8m mark yet again.

Aishwarya of Maharashtra shaved 2.19 seconds off her previous best time of 54.60 to win her heat race and qualify as the top-ranked athlete for the final.

However, the much-anticipated 100m clash between Dutee Chand and Hima Das will not happen as the latter pulled out of the heat races over the distance to concentrate on World Championships qualification in 200m.

Hima had entered her name for the 100m as well as 200m races. But, Saturday's 100m start list did not have the Assamese runner's name in it.

National record holder Dutee qualified for 100m final, winning heat number one in a time of 11.51. She did not enter her name in 200m.

"There is no issue with Hima Das. She did not run in 100m heats today because she wanted to concentrate on World Championships qualification in 200m. She will run in 200m," Indian athletics chief coach Radhakrishnan Nair said.

Hima has a personal best time of 22.88 seconds in 200m which she ran in 2021 while the qualification time for World Championships in Eugene, USA, is 22.80 seconds. She will have to break Saraswati Saha's 22.82 second national record if she has to qualify for the World Championships.

Nair also said that officials from the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) have arrived here from New Delhi to collect dope samples from the athletes.

In the 10000m race final, Kumar, a bronze medallist at the Asian Junior Championships in 2018, established himself as one of India's brightest long distance runners with a maiden Federation Cup 10000m gold medal by clocking 29:20.21s.

The Services runner produced the fastest time by an Indian in AFI competitions since Murli Kumar Gavit's 28:38.34 in the 2019 Asian Championships in Doha.

The 22-year-old positioned himself in the lead bunch through the race, pulling away with four laps to go and building a sufficient lead to hold back a late sprint by Sawan Barwal (Himachal Pradesh).

In the women's 10000m, Sanjivani Jadhav pulled away from Seema (Himachal Pradesh) after 10 laps to get a personal best time of 33:13.07.

The 25-year-old finished 1 minute 3 seconds off the 32:10.18 set by the AFI as the Asian Games qualifying mark.

Rosy Meena of Tamil Nadu became only the fifth Indian woman pole vaulter to clear 4.00m to win gold from her team-mate Baranica Elangovan by 10cm. Haryana's Pooja cleared 3.80m to take the bronze.

Aishwarya's 400m heat time on Saturday earned her place among the top 10 Indian women quartermilers in the past decade and is the second fastest this year behind the 52.37 that Priya Mohan clocked in the Indian Grand Prix 1 in Thiruvananthapuram last month.