Bhubaneswar: Ace Punjab sprinter Gurindervir Singh claimed the men’s 60m gold in a national record time after pre-race favourite Animesh Kujur was disqualified in a dramatic final on the concluding day of the inaugural National Indoor Athletics Championships here on Wednesday.
In a fitting end to the two-day championships, the men’s 60m final race lived up to the expectations, as Gurindervir, who was representing Reliance Foundation and running his maiden indoor race, emerged as the fastest runner of the meet. The 25-year-old Gurindervir clocked 6.60 seconds to better the earlier national indoor best of 6.67 seconds which has been in the name of Elakiya Dasan of Tamil Nadu since 2018.
The Athletics Federation of India (AFI), however, does not maintain an official list of national indoor records.
The race saw three false starts, with the third leading to local runner Animesh being shown a red card, much to the stunned silence of the sizable crowd at the 17,000-seater, state-of-the-art indoor facility at the Kalinga Stadium complex. Animesh, the national 100m and 200m outdoor national record holder, was seen speaking to the race officials before leaving the field of play disappointed. Lalu Prasad Bhoi of Odisha was second with 6.65 seconds while Nuzrat of Haryana was third.